Foreign workers and rights advocates yesterday staged a flash mob demonstration in the lobby of the Taipei Railway Station, urging the government to extend the protection of the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) to all foreign workers, and calling attention to the abuse of migrant workers.
At 11:30am, a group of migrant workers from the Philippines and Indonesia, as well as rights advocates from Taiwan and Malaysia, showed up in the lobby of the Taipei Railway Station unexpectedly, dancing to Philippine music while holding signs in English that read: “Justice to all migrant workers” and “we are women, we are workers, we are not slaves.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are here to show our support to migrant workers in Taiwan and elsewhere, to call on the government to grant equal rights to migrant and Taiwanese workers,” members of Philippine workers’ organization Migrante International and Indonesian workers’ organization ATKI-Taiwan told onlookers drawn by the music and the dance in Mandarin and Indonesian through loudspeakers.
Photo: CNA
“We also need your support in our campaign. Please join us in our action if you would, thank you very much,” they added.
Event spokesman Wong Ying-dah (汪英達) said there is a globally coordinated campaign in which rights advocates are to show up unexpectedly in public places and dance to raise public awareness about women’s rights on Valentine’s Day.
“However, we feel that in Taiwan, foreign domestic helpers — who are mostly women — are in worse conditions, so we decided to focus the campaign on the issue of migrant workers,” Wong said, adding that since this year’s Valentine’s Day falls on Friday and most foreign workers have to work, they decided to move the event to yesterday instead.
“Working conditions are bad for foreign domestic helpers, because they are not covered by the Labor Standards Act, so while the legal monthly minimum wage is more than NT$19,000 [US$626], foreign domestic helpers are getting only NT$15,840 — and their actual salary is lower after deductions,” Wong said. “In addition, as domestic helpers, they usually have to be on standby 24 hours a day, and many of them rarely get days off.”
AKIT-Taiwan president Lukman, a factory worker from Indonesia, echoed Wong, saying that one of his organization’s members had only one day off a year.
“And whether you’re working at someone’s home or at a factory, you can only get NT$12,000 to NT$13,000 a month on average, after deductions,” Lukman said. “That’s why we’re calling for help from the Taiwanese government.”
‘TAIWAN-FRIENDLY’: The last time the Web site fact sheet removed the lines on the US not supporting Taiwanese independence was during the Biden administration in 2022 The US Department of State has removed a statement on its Web site that it does not support Taiwanese independence, among changes that the Taiwanese government praised yesterday as supporting Taiwan. The Taiwan-US relations fact sheet, produced by the department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, previously stated that the US opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.” In the updated version published on Thursday, the line stating that the US does not support Taiwanese independence had been removed. The updated
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
RSS