Taiwan is a major employer of Southeast Asian migrant workers. We spoke with Archie, who has toiled in a factory for six years, and found a man not in the least bit deserving of the scorn and vitriol so often directed towards foreign workers in Taiwan.
Taipei Times
Date: 2018/08/06
By: Lin Shengyi (林勝毅)
Photo Credit: Lordcolus @ Flickr CC BY 2.0
The machines clang and clatter with a deafening ferocity as the factory whizzes along. Inside its walls, workers roast like turkeys in an oven in the hot summer heat. When the winter comes along, they set down their hot soy milk and watch it turn to ice the moment they start to work. This is life inside a Taiwanese industrial park – an experience shared by a decreasing number of locals, who opt out of long hours of arduous manual labor and let the tasks fall to Taiwan’s 680,000 migrant workers.
Archie, a Filipino, is one of them. Six years ago, he became the only one of his four siblings to venture to Taiwan for work. He has been working in the same factory for six years.
In Taiwan, migrant workers must sign new contracts every three years. Their jobs essentially depend on whether the owners wish to extend their employment. The amended Employment Services Act (ESA) allows workers to transfer employers after three years without restarting the costly recruitment process – but these rules are still flouted from time to time. Archie, knowing his employer is in control, has worked very hard to keep his job. [FULL STORY]