Foreign workers demonstrate for rights in Taiwan

Foreign workers demonstrate for rights in Taiwan

Agence France-Presse, Taipei

Some 600 blue-collar foreign workers took to the streets Sunday in a landmark first protest for labor rights in Taiwan.

Organizers said the protesters, mostly from the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, represented a minority group of some 300,000 foreign laborers whom they said were paid little attention by local society despite their long-time contribution to the country's development.

"This is the first step as for the first time foreign workers are standing up bravely for their rights," said Susan Chen, chairwoman of the Taiwan International Workers' Association.

"We hope people also recognize the contributions of foreign workers and give them due respect and treatment when they are seeing their burden lessened in taking care of family elders and kids," Chen added.

The workers asked the government to review the current policies, by lifting a restriction barring foreign workers transferring from one employer to another and implementing a direct country-to-country employment system to stop exploitation by manpower brokers.

They also pushed the government to draft a domestic service legislation to protect foreign maids' right to holidays and guarantee equal pay for foreign workers, who tend to be treated as a source of cheap labor.

In total, some three million foreign workers have been hired to work in Taiwan since the government opened up the imports of blue-collar foreign laborers in 1992, figures from the association showed.