The Workforce Development Agency under the Ministry of Labor announced on July 15 it would grant Vietnamese fishers and caretakers, excluding domestic workers, permission to work in Taiwan. The first batch of 10,000 Vietnamese laborers is expected to arrive in the coming three months.

Liberty Times reports, the total number of migrant workers was 566,000 people at the end of March. This includes 233,000 caretakers, of which up to 170,000 are Indonesian and 20,000 are Vietnamese. Among the migrant workers in industrial field, the Vietnamese took up the most number of people with 130,000.

Taiwan International Workers’ Association researcher Chen Su-xiang says, the reason the Indonesia government threatened to stop exporting labor is to negotiate with the Taiwanese government about improving the working condition of Indonesian laborers.

Chen criticizes, in order to boycott Indonesia, the Ministry of Labor is importing in cheap Vietnamese laborers like human traffickers.

Zhang Zheng, former editor-in-chief of 4-Way Voice, points out in an opinion article that the three requirements proposed by the Indonesian government (minimum monthly salary, guaranteed overtime pay and the workers’ own dormitory) are to remind Taiwan to face labor rights. If authorities keep ignoring the profession and social status of blue-collar workers, this new policy will only relieve the problems temporarily and cause more harm in the future.

Translated by June
Edited by Olivia Yang

Sources:
Liberty Times
Liberty Times
4-Way Voice