Filipino DHWs deal with issues in their lives in various ways. Most Filipinos have strong Catholic belief and attend Mass every Sunday at St. Christopher’s Church.
The church is a modest Catholic Church located on Chongshan North Road in Taipei.
The church offers services in both English and even in Tagalog due to the increasing amount of Filipino churchgoers on Sundays. Since the early 1990s, St. Christopher’s has become one of the most popular gathering places for Filipino migrant workers.
There is an estimate 3000 people that attend mass every Sunday. There they meet and greet one another and share their lives with one another. Near St. Christopher’s, there are many Filipino shops nearby, which gave the area the name “Little Manila”, that DHWs go to afterwards to socialize, eat and even party. 22
Garbage collection time is one of the few occasions when migrant domestic workers can leave the houses of their employers. In Taiwan, most residencies require each household to wait for a garbage truck to come in order to dispose their trash.
While awaiting the garbage truck, which comes at the same time five days a week, they chat with their fellow nationals, exchange romance pocket books, and sometimes use a phone to call their families. In addition, migrant women grasp the moments of picking up children at school or wheeling the elderly in the park to share information and feelings with other migrant caretakers. There are also a lot of efforts by governments from both the Philippines and Taiwan that should be addressed.
Efforts made by the Philippine’s Representative in Taiwan
At the Ugynayan Center, I had a chance to sit down with four different teachers to learn about how the Filipino government is helping its citizens to improve their lives in Taiwan as well as train them for coming back to the Philippines to help strengthen the economy.
“OWWA has set up a program to help train Filipinos in various skills. The students are taking a basic
computer class to learn Microsoft programs such as Word, PowerPoint and Excel. Some of them also don’t know how to
22I went to some of the nightclubs, which are actually more like day clubs that Filipinos go to after church in the morning. Everyone there dresses up as if they were going out on a Saturday night since they can’t go out any other time of the week.There they told me about some of their lives in Taiwan and some of the stories of their friends.
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use the Internet. The students work in factories or are caregivers and are from all over the Philippines. The class teaches workers how to connect with their families and we teach them how to use Skype, MSN, or Face book so that they have a cheaper alternative for connecting with their families rather than making phone calls. There are also other classes at the center such as Chinese so that they can further communicate and adapt.
One of the other programs here at the center is for learning how to fix computers. It is the government’s hope that the workers abroad can obtain various skills and then bring those back to the Philippines to support the Filipino economy. There is also a technology class. The idea behind teaching the workers about technology is to bridge the gap of communication between workers and their families back in the Philippines. If they have to use their cell phone or a calling card then that’s very expensive but in this age of technology if you can invest in a notebook and have an Internet connection, it’s very easy to stay connected. More so, there is also an entrepreneurship and development training program
at the center. This will help them understand how to go into business because many of them want to do that but have no idea how to do so.” 23
The director at MECO also informed me about the efforts being made by the Filipino government for its citizens in Taiwan.
“Out of the more than 70,000 plus Filipino workers in Taiwan, 23,000 of them are caretakers and domestic workers.
Compared to other countries, Taiwan has a very good protective policy for its workers but currently there are discussions about how to further improve the policies especially in respect to household workers. Generally in the world, household service workers are not protected by labor standards law, which are normally applicable to industry workers, so the situation in Taiwan is not an exception but it may be good to know that all over the world now there is a movement to try and cover household service workers with specific laws, if not entirely under the labor standards law. In fact in June of 2011 the international labor organization is going to take up a possible international convention for the protection of domestic workers and Taiwan is also talking about the possibility of adapting its own law with regards to household based workers. The Philippines is also situated in the condition that it’s been in law standing proposal in our congress to provide a law protecting household based workers.
Although currently under our labor code there is a prohibition providing minimum wage to household service workers as well as for the welfare of the workers doing domestic work, but as many people know domestic work is an especially located type of work where labor standards are quite difficult to fully implement.
In the beginning of October 2010, we also had some discussion with CLA on the possibility of relaxing policies to make it easier for household workers to transfer to other employers when their employment relationship might not be working very well. These are some of the measures being considered by the Taiwanese government in order to discourage running away or overstay workers. And in addition there is a negotiation or a consultant mechanism between Taiwan and the Philippines called the Joint Labor Committee Meeting (JLCM). JLCM is expected to be held in June, 2011 and is expected to cover issues such as
23An interview I had with the center in June 2011
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the terms and conditions of work involving the household workers and factors that might be creating problems in relation to their times of work. Placement and service fees that workers are subjected to will be taken into consideration. The Filipino government has adopted a policy some years back prohibiting the collection of placement fees from household based workers.
But that has resulted in less employment opportunities for our workers. Our household base workers pride themselves with the fact that many of them are better off in terms of being able to utilize the English language in serving their clients. But as you know, Taiwan is basically not an English-speaking place so some sending countries have been more competitive in this respect because they need to train their workers to speak Mandarin. There is an attempt by the Filipino government to provide training in this area, but we still have a long way to go in allowing our household workers in Taiwan to be able to speak fluent Mandarin in order to promote better communication. So as a result of this, up until this time, it is still necessary for household base workers from the Philippines to be served by Taiwanese brokers, especially when it comes to interpretation services. Although many Filipino household workers are quick to learn Mandarin, but they still need a lot of help to ensure that communication is strong.
Another problem that they don't normally complain about is that sometimes they are not able to enjoy their day off especially when the types of clients they serve are bed-ridden or seriously ill. So we are in discussion with the Taiwanese government on possible policies that would give the employer some flexibility to hire a part-time worker, not only a local worker but also a foreign worker, or multiple employees at the same time so that they can enjoy their day off, which is necessary for their health.
So we are in discussion with Taiwan in a problem-solving mode, so hopefully if the two parties continue to exhibit good faith, then we will look at the problems objectively and find ways that policies can be adjusted in order to accommodate those needs.
The other development between Taiwan-Filipino relations with respect to protecting workers is that we are promoting what we are calling “direct hiring program”. This is a program where employers could hire workers without
brokers from both ends. The advantage of this is so that the workers will not shoulder so many expenses. They will have fewer expenses to be recruited and employed in Taiwan and that should minimize their economic burden and increase their earning capacity while in Taiwan. This year (2011) we also to re-operationalize an online recruitment system which would make it easier for the Taiwanese employers interview their crew and to get permission to hire foreign workers.
This way it could be less cumbersome and costly for them. Of course the Filipino government is looking at ways in which we can prepare our workers a lot better. If they can perform their jobs well then the employers will be more delighted and satisfied and that will promote a healthier relationship with the employers. So household service workers from the Philippines are required to have what we call “national certification” too from our technical education and skills
development accordingly, which requires them to be trained and competent and proficient in certain skills like with cooking, taking care of sick patients and medical conditions so that they can take good care of their employer.
Over the years Taiwan’s protective labor legislation, especially the employment service act, has developed and
is quite protective of migrant workers. Of course migrant workers, just like any worker anywhere else would want better protection and improvement in the labor laws that can provide them better security and protection. Pilipino workers
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appreciate that fact, but at the same time they wish that the limit for working in Taiwan can be further expanded to 12 years and the people working in the household sector want to be covered by the protection of the labor standards act, which currently doesn’t protect them along with the labor insurance as well.
There are two basic legislations other than the regional prohibition of the labor code of the Philippines. There was a law that was made in 1995 called the migrant workers act of 1995 for Republic Act 8042 and there was a recent legislation in 2011 called the Republic Act 1022, which are basically the cornerstone policies of our government. In 2010 when the new administration came into power, he laid down what he called a 22-point agenda for labor, which defines the policy and acts as the basis for allowing our workers to work in foreign countries. Basically this policy requires that we send our workers to destinations that have protective legislations for workers in general, inclusive of migrant workers.
We have a system for documenting workers so that they and their purpose for going abroad can be properly identified and also so that they can be protected from human trafficking. We are also requiring our workers to be protected by our overseas welfare administration so that they have some insurance and that their families back home have protection against health or medical problems, provided they need any assistance. We have a system that requires Filipino brokers to be accredited with the foreign brokers and principals, and they are obliged under our legislation to have joint and solidify liability for protecting the workers so that if any harm occurs with the workers, these agencies are held responsible by our government together with the host government to protect the workers.
Before brokers recruit workers in the Philippines, must recruit through a licensed counterpart agency. And those agencies have certain qualifications; they need to be licensed, have no illegal recruitment record, and they need to have a performance bond, which will ensure that they will have the economic capacity to fill their obligations towards the workers. Also, the Philippines maintain offices abroad such as MECO to oversee compliance of those brokers under their accreditation and obligation. Of course our offices also work with our counterpart offices in the host government. We work with the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) and the local bureau of labor affairs to ensure the workers rights are observed and protected. If the brokers violate workers rights then we prevent them from having authority to recruit.” 24
Lastly, the director said that although the remittance of Filipino workers has not exceeded 15% of the Philippine’s GDP, there is no deny that the contribution of our workers, especially in generating foreign remittance, has been very significant, which has helped the Philippines economy and Filipino families as well. He also said there were studies before by the IMF and the World Bank suggesting that the
beginning of the overseas employment program, our overseas workers are belonging to the lowest 20% of the income decimal in the Philippines and were using their
24Ibid
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income to purchase consumer items. But now many of them are engaging in
investment, can send their kids to school, and have acquired households, so one can see that they are improving in their economic standing. The director pointed out that migrant workers going abroad have helped the families a lot along with our industries, but still the government would like to see a situation where ultimately this overseas employment becomes a genuine option for the worker rather than being forced into it because they have no option at all.
Actions Taken by Taiwanese Organizations
About 2,000 people, including migrant workers, rights activists, unionists and college students, took to the streets in Taipei in mid-December 2011, calling on the government to better protect the rights of migrant domestic workers by giving them regular days off and establishing a minimum wage. Protestors were holding up signs that read, “Where is my day off?” in Indonesian, Thai, Vietnamese and Tagalog. The migrant workers and their Taiwanese supporters said that they wanted to have
vacation time as they began their march at the Zhongxiao Fuxing MRT station all the way to Taipei 101. 25
Lorna Kung (龔尤倩), who works at an NGO called the Migrant Workers Concern Desk, was at the forefront with a megaphone shouting “in 2007, migrant workers took to the streets for the first time, shouting: ‘I want days off.’ In 2009, they did it again, shouting: ‘I still don’t have any days off.’ This year, unfortunately, migrant workers have to come out again and ask: ‘Where are my days off?’”
Kung was also posing the question- “finding them in such a difficult position, what foreign domestic worker could negotiate with his or her employer on an equal footing?” Besides questioning the government’s efforts, Kung called on Taiwanese employers to give foreign domestic workers a break. “Most foreign domestic workers take care of the elderly and the physically challenged, but only when they have had enough rest can they provide quality care for the needy in your family,” she said. 26
Wang Wen-hsiu (王文秀), a specialist from the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan Labour Concerns Centre, which is a member organization of the Migrant
25The march takes place bi-annually and over 2000 foreign workers and Taiwanese participate 26Taipei Times article“Protestors urge better protections for migrant workers”
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Empowerment Network in Taiwan, also attended the rally. She said that of the
200,000 foreign domestic workers in the country, only 5.5 percent could have regular days off on public holidays and weekends. Moreover, as much as 42.4 percent of foreign domestic workers have not had a single day off this year.
Wang also said that on average, DHWs work 13 hours a day, their passports are usually taken by their Taiwanese employers, and they are also under constant threat of being fired and sent home. Wang said that most of them don’t dare to resist because in order to come to Taiwan, they’ve borrowed a large amount of money — around $200,000 (USD$6,700) — and they need to make money to pay back that debt.
A migrant worker from Vietnam surnamed Nguyen had told newspaper sources that during the nine years she has worked in Taiwan as a domestic caregiver, she has had almost no days off. Nguyen said she works more than 10 hours a day and that her employer took her passport on her first day of work. She also said that for the first two or three years, she worked with no income since almost all of her wages were used to pay back the bank loan she took out to get to Taiwan. 27
During my interviews with various people at the rally, I got a strong sense of frustration amongst workers. They all came out to voice how tiresome they were to make their living and how they aren’t even able to enjoy their lives outside of work.
For them, according to one interviewee, Taiwan is both a saving grace and a prison for migrant workers.
A factory worker joined the protest in support of DHWs. He said he and his friends attended the rally to support migrant workers and voice their opinions to the government how migrant workers rights should be protected more. He said migrant workers are people too, and like people in Taiwan, they need time off to rest.
I ran into a couple of Caucasians that were also supporting the rally. A Swiss man in his late 30s said he is working as a volunteer at a migrant center in Hsinchu.
He went to rally support for DHWs because there are no labor laws to protect them and most of them do not have a day off. “Some of them get voluntarily days off. It is estimated that out of the four hundred plus thousand migrant workers in Taiwan only about one hundred thousand of them get days off once a week and many just once a month. But that means there are hundreds of thousands of other migrant workers that have no days off for as much as up to 3 years,” he said.
27Ibid