Citizen’s Congress Watch yesterday lashed out the legislature for the passage of an amendment to the Fisheries Act (漁業法) that relieved employers of foreign fishermen of the obligation to pay for employees’ health insurance premiums dating back to 2009, while opposition lawmakers expressed concern that the amendment heralded a possible exclusion of the workers from the mandatory insurance system.
Late on Thursday night, one day before the legislative session ended, the legislature approved the controversial amendment without objection, despite concerns voiced by several civil groups led by Citizen’s Congress Watch earlier this week over alleged violations of international covenants on human rights.
The amendment to Article 69-2 waived debts employers of migrant marine workers should have paid for the workers’ coverage under the National Health Insurance (NHI) from 2009 until the passage of the amendment.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
The change was proposed by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators Su Ching-chuan (蘇清泉) and Huang Chao-hsun (黃昭順). It garnered more than a dozen KMT lawmakers’ signatures and was endorsed by all parties.
The proposal was put forward because “foreign fishermen have long been insured by their employers under commercial insurance schemes rather than through the NHI and foreign fishermen paid out of their own pockets instead of using the NHI system when seeking medical help,” its initiators said.
The NHI administration’s demand for unpaid premiums “has unreasonably made foreign fishermen shoulder the fees while not benefiting from the state-run system,” they said.
Citizen’s Congress Watch said that the reasons given for waiving employers’ responsibility to pay the premiums were not legitimate.
“Su’s proposal legitimized what had been illegal,” the group said.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lin Shu-fen (林淑芬) said the passage of the amendment was “shameful exploitation of a vulnerable group.”
Lin said it was “a symbolic crack” in the current system, which would mean that even though the law requires employers to insure foreign fishermen through the NHI, they could stop paying the premiums, as “lawmakers will someday write the debts off.”
Some DPP lawmakers proposed making other changes to the article, including one that would have exempted foreign fishermen from the nation’s labor insurance system if their employers had them covered by a commercial insurance firm, and one that would exclude the workers from the mandatory NHI system. The other amendments were withheld at the session.
Although the DPP’s proposals were not passed, Lin said she knew that their backers would resubmit them.
“A group of vulnerable fishermen fight the ocean for Taiwanese and we are going to deprive them of their rights,” Lin said.
“Is it sensible for the DPP, which has even agreed to have Chinese students who study in Taiwan insured with the NHI, to deprive foreign fishermen of the same right, especially when they risk their lives at their job?” she asked.
Additional reporting by Shih Hsiu-chuan
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat