Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: tomscoffsin/WikiCommons/CC BY 2.0
A NEW PROPOSAL by the Lai administration from late last year would allow families with children to hire foreign caretakers to serve as nannies.
Nevertheless, many of the usual stalwarts of Taiwanese civil society have reacted against the proposal. Among the groups to take a stand against the proposal are the Awakening Foundation, one of Taiwan’s leading feminist organizations, the Taiwan Labour Front, as well as the Childcare and Employment Policy Promotion Alliance, and the National Childcare Industry Union.
Specifically, the proposal has been criticized as allowing for the further exploitation of both Taiwanese and the blue-collar migrant workers that would presumably take up such jobs. Many Taiwanese families have insufficient time to take care of their children because of long hours and exploitative working conditions.
That young Taiwanese workers work long hours for little pay and are unable to afford housing–one would have to not eat or drink for fifteen years in Taipei to purchase a house–contributes to Taiwan’s declining birthrate. Taiwan has among the lowest fertility rates in the world, at a time when Taiwan has become a “Super-Aged” population in which 20% of the population is above 65.
Rather than alleviating the structural conditions that contribute to why Taiwanese parents do not have sufficient time for childcare, the Lai administration is criticized for allowing for the exploitation of migrant workers. The civil society groups that criticized the new proposal pointed to how migrant workers have to pay exorbitant fees to brokers who arrange for their transportation to and employment in Taiwan.
In this sense, the Lai administration was further criticized for attempting to simply exploit blue-collar migrant workers rather than address the exploitative conditions facing Taiwanese workers. Other concerns, however, return to the fact that the domestic childcare industry is likely to be undercut by blue-collar migrant workers who are paid much less and have weaker protections.
More generally, the Lai administration has sought to lower the barriers to hiring blue-collar migrant workers. For example, earlier last year, the Lai administration announced plans to relax requirements that individuals aged 80 years or older, or who are between 70 and 79 but suffer from stage 2 cancer or above, need to pass a Barthel index examination before hiring a migrant caregiver.
Taiwan’s leading migrant worker advocacy groups, including the Taiwan International Workers’ Association, the Awakening Foundation, the Domestic Caretaker Union, Serikat Buruh Industri Perawatan Taiwan, and other groups, took a stand against this move. In particular, such groups have called attention to the fact that the move is merely aimed at expanding the pool of migrant caregivers, who work long hours for little pay,
Likewise, the Lai administration has taken moves that will open Taiwan’s hospitality industry to migrant workers. The hospitality industry has long clamored for migrant workers to be allowed to work in the industry, though this was turned down by the government with the view that they would be competition for Taiwanese workers. However, what are legally internship programs already had come to provide the legal framework for migrant workers taking up jobs in the hospitality industry in past years.
It is probable that the Lai administration merely means to win votes from the Taiwanese electorate in allowing for further exploitation of migrant workers, who take up the so-called “3D” –“dirty, dangerous, and demeaning”–jobs that Taiwanese no longer want to. After all, if civil society groups may be critical of the Lai administration’s proposals, this is not likely to be the case for the general public, which may welcome when migrant workers take up exploitative jobs that fewer Taiwanese are willing to do.