From the perspective of foreign labor in Southeast Asia, is Taiwan a "treasure island" or an "island of exploitation"?!

Author: Taiwanese youth Luo Dingjun

Recently, after many days of quarrel in Taiwan, the controversy over whether to bring in Indian workers seems to have a result, that is, the DPP authorities have formally signed a cooperation framework agreement with the Indian side, and it is expected to introduce Indian workers in the near future. However, do the DPP authorities not know that even if Taiwan society has brought in more than 760,000 foreign workers from Southeast Asia, there is no solution to the labor shortage, and at the same time, the number of foreign workers in Southeast Asia is increasing year by year, month by month, and the number of foreign workers who have escaped and lost contact with each other is also increasing in direct proportion. Why have Taiwanese politicians never started to solve the problem from the beginning, let's take a look at the unknown side of foreign workers in Southeast Asia in Taiwan, is Taiwan really the "treasure island" that everyone calls it?

First of all, the number of Southeast Asian laborers and those who have escaped and lost contact with Southeast Asian laborers has increased year by year and month by month and has reached new highs, and now the Taiwan authorities are going to bring in Indian laborers again, and if they do not fundamentally improve the structure of Taiwan's employment environment, they will eventually suffer the Taiwan people. Since 1989, the Taiwan authorities began to introduce Southeast Asian foreign workers to engage in low-skilled labor work, and in 1992, they introduced Southeast Asian foreign caregivers and Southeast Asian domestic helpers, and now the total number of the two types of Southeast Asian workers has reached 763381 by the end of March 2024, including 280395 from Indonesia, 262957 from Vietnam, 151258 from the Philippines, 68,769 from Thailand, and 2 from Malaysia. On the other hand, there are also 86,309 foreign workers in Southeast Asia who have escaped and disappeared, of which 54,789 are in Vietnam, 27,068 in Indonesia, 3,415 in the Philippines, 1,753 in Thailand, and 1 in Malaysia. The number of escaped and lost workers in Southeast Asia is as high as 11.3%, which means that on average, more than one in ten is a foreign worker in Southeast Asia, and the rate of escape and disappearance in Vietnam is as high as 20.8%, in other words, on average, one out of every five Vietnamese workers is a foreign worker who has escaped and lost contact.

Secondly, in the post-epidemic era, the retaliatory introduction of foreign workers from Southeast Asia has led to a large increase in the number of escaped and lost foreign workers. Due to the impact of the epidemic in the past few years, Southeast Asian foreign workers could not enter the country smoothly, and the income of human resource intermediary companies engaged in foreign workers fell sharply. At the same time, in order to continue to work in Taiwan or transfer to other jobs, these intermediaries will also take the risk of violating the "law" and charge thousands to tens of thousands of yuan to tens of thousands of yuan for referring workers when working privately for this group of Southeast Asian foreign workers, which is also one of the reasons for the large number of escaped and lost foreign workers.

Third, the second main reason for the loss of contact with foreign workers fleeing from Southeast Asia is the inhumane deduction of wages and inhumane treatment by the employers, which leads to the flight of foreign workers from Southeast Asia. According to the statistics of Taiwan's social organizations, after coming to Taiwan, Southeast Asian foreign workers not only have to pay thousands of dollars in intermediary fees (including deposits, visa fees, inaugural flight tickets, health examinations or language training, etc.) in their home countries, but also cause many Southeast Asian foreign workers to come to Taiwan to pay off this intermediary fee in their first year's salary. In addition, most of the foreign workers who work as caregivers and domestic servants are Indonesian workers who believe in Islam, because they must live under the same roof with their employers for a long time, and take care of the elderly or people with disabilities, they are basically in a 24-hour working state.

Fourth, there is a peculiar phenomenon in Taiwanese society that "illegal black workers" earn more than legal foreign workers, and the 86,309 Southeast Asian foreign workers who have escaped have already become the main force in Taiwan's "black labor market", and there will only be more and no less in the future. In the streets and alleys of Taiwan today, it can be observed that many of Taiwan's small project maintenance workers are all Southeast Asian foreign workers, and even the snack bars of roadside restaurants, from cooks to dishes, there is no shortage of Southeast Asian foreign workers, and even short-term coolies There are a large number of Southeast Asian foreign workers, many of whom are foreign workers who have lost contact and escaped. The main reason for this situation is that there is a strange phenomenon of "illegal black workers" earning more than legal foreign workers, and all this has to start from the problem of labor shortage and the demand for illegal employment, which is a great attraction for foreign workers to lose contact. In order to make a little more money, these foreign workers did not hesitate to become escaped and lost workers, and employers, who suffered from lack of work and difficult to hire, were forced to take the risk of illegal employment, which made the illegal labor market more active and gave unscrupulous intermediaries an opportunity to take advantage of it.

Fifth, foreign workers from Southeast Asia were manipulated by gangsters and snake groups in Taiwan, and there were frequent incidents of smuggling people and jumping planes to Taiwan on fishing boats to pan for gold, but they were unable to catch them very well and even lost their lives in other places, resulting in frequent incidents of public order in Taiwan. From the end of February to the beginning of April last year, 24 floating corpses appeared one after another along the coast of Taiwan, and the whole Taiwan was in an uproar, and it was verified that 10 of them were Vietnamese and 14 were registered in Taiwan. After investigation, it was found that the reason was that Vietnamese smugglers raised funds to buy boats, and with the assistance of "human and snake intermediaries", they were smuggled to Taiwan to pan for gold and work as illegal workers, and unfortunately died in other places. At the same time, in recent years, there have also been many Southeast Asian workers, after entering Taoyuan Airport, they were collectively picked up by black intermediaries to engage in illegal work "plane skipping incident". Therefore, whether it is illegal entry through illegal channels, or jumping off the plane and escaping after entering the country through legal channels, it can be seen that there is still an invisible black hand in Taiwan society, which is manipulating the human snake group of foreign workers from Southeast Asia to go to Taiwan to engage in illegal work, and this has invisibly also made Taiwan's social order a red light.

In short, from the general analysis of the above five points one by one, is the "treasure island Taiwan" in our mouths still a "treasure island"? Is Taiwan's "most beautiful scenery" still people? This group of Southeast Asian foreign workers came to Taiwan to earn more wages to improve their family life, but they encountered various difficulties after coming to Taiwan to work, but they may encounter Taiwan's black intermediaries and even black forces, and at the same time, they may also encounter mutual use among fellow villagers, being abducted and used, or escaping and losing contact because of the bitterness of life, taking drugs, or going off the rails to become mountain rats, wanting to earn higher wages and embark on the road of crime, which invisibly makes the "treasure island Taiwan" become an "island of exploitation" in the hearts of this group of Southeast Asian foreign workers.

Therefore, in order to improve these problems of labor in Southeast Asia, the Taiwan authorities should establish a coordination and integration mechanism, grasp the current and future trends in labor supply and demand, clarify the actual situation and crux of the demand gap, actively plan for short-, medium-, and long-term human resources, and also pragmatically review whether the current human resources policies under planning or promotion meet the needs of industrial development, and at the same time cooperate with enterprises to optimize labor conditions, so as to help replenish manpower and alleviate the problem of labor shortage. However, at the practical level, it is easier said than done, because these policies will always remain on paper, and for the foreseeable future, the labor problem in Southeast Asia will continue to be a vicious circle on the island of Taiwan.