Employers of illegal workers to get stiff fines

CLA officials told the Legislative Yuan yesterday that they will raise the fine for employing illegal foreign workers to NT$750,000 from the current NT$150,000.

According to Labor Minister Lee Ying-yuan, there are around 20,000 foreigners working illegally in the country.

“Due to the huge number of foreign workers who run away every month, it has been impossible to bring the total number illegal workers below 20,000,” Lee told legislators yesterday while announcing the new policy. As a result, he explained, the CLA decided to target employers who hire illegally.

The NT$750,000, Lee noted, represents the maximum possible fine as stipulated by the Employment Service Law.

Kuo Fang-yu, director-general of the CLA Employment and Vocational Training Administration who accompanied Lee to the Legislative Yuan, told reporters that there were concerns about the illegal workers resorting to crime.

“If these workers encounter problems and are not able to sustain themselves, they may resort to extreme measures such as robbery or other criminal activity,” Kuo said.

Some labor activists, however, doubt that the move will have any effect and blame the system itself for illegal workers, most of whom were previously legal but ran away from their jobs.

“This will not really solve the problem,” said Lennon Wong, head of the Chinese Labor Federation. “And it won’t be solved until they deal with the reason why they run away which relates to their exploitation. But, they don’t want to deal with the real issues and would rather do superficial things and [wash their hands off it].”

Wong says that miserable working conditions and oppressive regulations which favor employers and do not take the workers’ needs into account actually incite workers to leave the legal working environment when they have problems.

He pointed out that a majority of the runaways are those who were employed as domestic help which, he says, suggests that the root of the cause is the conditions in which they work.

“Domestic servants have less access to help if they have a bad employer,” he says.

One such worker, Mary Ann Kag-Ayed, a caregiver from the Philippines who was initially working in Taiwan legally, said that she ran away as a result of her former employer’s attempts to have her sent back home. Kag-Ayed now works illegally for another family.

“After I pay off my debts at home [in the Philippines], I will probably turn myself in,” she said, noting she expected that it would take about three years. She added that, despite her change in status, her current duties are little different from her previous ones. “Before I was taking care of an old woman and now I watch an 8-month-old baby. But I am afraid to go out in case I am found and deported.”

According to Kag-Ayed, her troubles started when she was diagnosed with a thyroid problem and a doctor said she would have to undergo surgery for which her employer wanted her sent back to the Philippines. After taking medications, however, another doctor said she was cured and an operation was unnecessary, but her employer still insisted on terminating the contract and Kag-Ayed’s petition for a transfer to another employer was denied.

“At a hearing I had to listen to madam tell them about how I wasn’t a good employee and had a bad attitude,” she says. “I think she just wanted to end the contract and get rid of me, but I couldn’t go home yet so I ran away.”

The increased fine will go into effect on April 20, CLA officials said.

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