The Taipei City Government’s Department of Labor Affairs yesterday promised to strengthen inspections on illegal work cases of white-collar foreign workers after a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City councilor accused a foreign English-language teacher of moonlighting as a male stripper.
DPP Taipei City Councilor Hung Chien-yi (洪健益) said the teacher from England registered his workplace in Hsinchu County. However, he was also found working as a male stripper under the stage name Eric in nightclubs in Taipei City.
The teacher’s illegal work status was exposed after he was involved in a dispute with a 27-year-old Taipei resident surnamed Wu (吳) at Taipei Wanhua Sports Center on Sunday, Wu said.
According to Wu, the person shouted at front desk staff at the center who would not let him in because he failed to bring a towel. Wu tried to resolve the situation, but was “almost involved in a physical confrontation” with the foreigner, who threatened to hurt him.
“He said he was a gangster and I would pay for not minding my own business ... I later found out that not only was he an English teacher, but also a male stripper. This is not appropriate behavior for a foreign English teacher,” Wu told a press conference at Taipei City Council.
Hung accused the foreigner of threatening Taiwanese and ignoring the country’s laws by illegally moonlighting, urging the Taipei City Government and the Taipei City Police Department to clamp down on the illegal jobs of so-called white-collar foreign workers.
“Taiwan is a friendly country and we welcome foreigners to work and live here legally. What we do not allow is any acts of disrespect toward Taiwanese and illegal acts from people like ‘Mr Eric,’” he said. “Illegal working does not only happen with foreign laborers from Southeast Asian countries. Instead of targeting those foreign laborers, the Department of Labor Affairs needs to strengthen its inspection of foreign workers from other countries.”
Chen Hui-chi (陳惠琪), a division chief at the department, said the Employment Service Act (就業服務法) stipulated that foreigners must work in accordance with the job title and description listed on their work permits and that the department would work with the Hsinchu County Government to inspect the person’s work permit to see if “Eric” had broken the law.
“Moonlighting as a male stripper is obviously a violation of the law because he should only work as an English teacher as the work permit allows,” she said.
Foreigners who break the law the act would have their work permit revoked and be deported immediately, she said.
Information from the department showed that there are more than 30,000 foreign white-collar workers and more than 40,000 foreign laborers in Taipei. Chen said there was a lack of manpower for the inspection of foreign workers, with only three civil servants responsible for checking the work permits of white-collar foreign workers, while there are 27 staff who inspect the work status of blue-collar foreign laborers.
“Statistically, there are more legal violations by foreign laborers, but we will work harder to inspect the work status of foreign workers to prevent any violations from that group as well,” she said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the