Immigrants Should Have the Same Rights as Taiwanese

張貼日期：May 29, 2017 11:43:18 AM

Sum Tsen

Migration has created and responded to development changes within Taiwan, both demographically and socioeconomically. According to The National Immigration Affairs, twenty percent of all marriages in Taiwan involve foreign spouses, with 12% of all births occurring to such couples. Taiwan must devise policy strategies to prevent exploitation of immigrants, including care and education young immigrants and combating inequality towards immigrants.

The prevention of immigrants from being exploited includes the care or guidance of new immigrants. Most foreign workers in Taiwan work in the oceanic fishing, domestic helping, manufacturing, construction, nursing, bilingual translation and food industry. Although Taiwan does allow the employment of specialized foreign workers who are able to provide specialized knowledge and skills for competitive technologies, those who work as domestic helpers, chefs, factory workers and construction workers would be regarded as lower class. In addition, foreign workers should also pay income tax on salary earned in Taiwan, which is obviously a financial burden to them.For instance, if foreign workers’ monthly income is below 1.5 times the minimum wage, i.e. NT$28,571, as authorized by the Executive Yuan, 6% of the income will be withheld for income tax purposes. If their monthly income exceeds that of $ NT28,571, 18% of the income will be withheld for income tax purposes. For a foreign worker in Taiwan employed as a domestic helper or caregiver, despite the fact that their employer is not a withholding agent under the income tax law, foreign workers still need to, in accordance with their labor contract, pay their monthly income tax accordingly, which is an unfair practice.

Another concerned issue is the equal right to education of children of immigrants. Allowing young immigrants to participate in the 12-year compulsory education scheme is necessary because of Taiwan's rapidly aging population and low birth rate. Through education, Taiwan can maintain its competitiveness with the balancing of educated and skilled younger generation regardless of he or she being a Taiwan citizen or not. The aging and shrinking population indicates that Taiwan will run into acute labor shortage problems. If we do not educate young immigrants, it will hurt Taiwan's economic growth over the long term because most young immigrants will become low skilled workers in the future. When it comes to manufacturing, Taiwan will continue to face competition from its regional neighbors and it is inevitable that some manufacturing jobs will be lost in the near future. The government needs to focus on finding ways to improve the literacy rate of young immigrants to ensure that they can contribute to Taiwan’s National GDP.

It is undeniable that inequality and double standard judgment are apparent towards treating foreign workers. Foreign workers that are not covered by the “Labor Standard Act” such as the domestic helpers and household care-takers are not under the protection of the Labor Standard Act. Wages, working hours, leave and overtime work must be regulated by the “labor contract” drawn up between foreign workers and the employer. The ministry ignores the elephant in the room, which is foreign workers are not paid the national minimum wages. The outcome of this situation might be foreign workers working overtime without limit, which results in overwork and therefore affects social, emotional, spiritual, occupational, and physical wellness of foreign workers.Far too many migrants in the industry have told similar stories of theirs being to work 14 hours or more a day, working weeks or months without days off, and rarely getting any annual leave. That means even if they were paid the national minimum wage, they would still not receive just recompense.

Despite these challenges, the cultural landscape in Taiwan is changing; the changing cultural dynamic in Taiwan points to a trend toward an increasing acceptance of multiculturalism. While Taiwan’s immigration policy has come a long way in recent years, there is still much that could be done to open the society up.