merchant
Number of posts : 83
KARMA : 2
Registration date : 2009-02-23
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 Subject: Over 8,800 OFWs at risk in new Taiwan layoffs' Fri Mar 06, 2009 8:51 am |
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03/05/2009 | 06:50 PM
MANILA, Philippines – Taiwan's Council of Labor Affairs is considering reducing the number of foreign workers in the manufacturing sector by a further 30,000 this year, according to migrants rights advocates.
The Hong-Kong based Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants (APMM) said on Thursday that this could mean another 8,868 OFWs might be retrenched this year.
APMM said CLA's Employment and Vocational Training Administration data showed that in October 2008 there were about 85,465 OFWs in Taiwan, of which 61,446 were from the manufacturing industry; 22,869 were caregivers and domestic helpers; 815 crewmen; and 335 construction workers.
Last January, however, the same data indicated that the number of OFWs declined to 75,871. The total number of workers in the manufacturing decreased to 52,003, indicating that about 9,443 OFWs were retrenched during the period.
Filipino workers in construction companies also went down from 335 to 211, with some 124 workers affected, while the number of caregivers and domestic helpers went down to 22,815 .
Only crew workers increased by 27 to 842 from 815.
APMM also disputed reports that no OFWs in Taiwan were retrenched during the month of February. Records of Migrante-Taiwan indicated that there were at least 200 workers laid off during that time.
And Taiwan’s CLA statistics indicate that from October 2008 to January 2009 there was a reduction of 9,574 OFWs in Taiwan. Of these, 9,443 came from the manufacturing sector.
So if the Manila Economic Council Office (MECO) claims that 4,445 new workers were deployed to Taiwan during the same period, this simply means that the net outflow of OFWs was more, or 14,019, Gi Estrada APMM coordinator said.
Estrada also warned that the CLA was also inclined to implement subcontracting of migrant workers by its proposal to have contracts between brokers and migrants and between brokers and employers. In effect, the employers of the OFWs would be the exploitative Taiwanese brokers, APMM said.
"It is predicted that the Philippine government would accept the latter with nary a word of protest to ensure that its labor export policy remains unimpeded," APMM said. "In the first place, the Arroyo regime would rather send more people abroad even if their labor and human rights are violated instead of letting them go back home where they might become more troublesome to the government because the situation is far more worse."GMA news
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