This is a Good Start for Solidarity

Different labor organizations including indigenous peoples groups, union leaders, academicians and students gathered together for a two-day conference on unemployment and migrant workers. This conference was held by WOW (Working Organization for Women). Although there were some differences in opinion, a common understanding of the issues was reached by all after the activity.

The two-day conference was entitled "Did Migrant Workers Steal Our Jobs?--Internationalization of Capital and Unemployment" and it was held on May 20 - 21 at the NTU. Participants in the two-day activity included the Labor Rights Association, Labor Front, Information Center for Labor Education, Hope Workers Center, Rerum Novarum, and Taiwan Indigenous Peoples Association.

A documentary film on the commodification of Filipino migrant workers called "Modern Heroes, Modern Slaves" ushered in the activity. This film served to facilitate the discussion on the causes of migration. Mr. Ramon Bultron, the executive director of the Asia Pacific Mission for Migrant Filipinos, then delivered a paper on the Labor Export Program of the Philippine government and the root causes of Philippine migration.

Afterwards, the participants were divided into two workshop groups to discuss the issue of why there are migrant workers in Taiwan. Some of the ideas that came out of the workshop are that migrant workers are needed by the employers not only to get a source of cheap labor but also to cheapen even the price of local labor. This in turn would create friction between the local and migrant workers instead of blaming the employers and even government policies for the local laborers woes. Migrant workers also tend to be more docile as they are already indebted even before coming to Taiwan and are denied the rights and benefits enjoyed by local workers.

Dr. Pao-Yu Ching, a visiting economics professor at the Graduate School of Social Transformation Studies talked about the internationalization of capital and unemployment. Essentially, she said that the root causes of unemployment in Taiwan and as to why are there migrant workers here are the same, i.e. internationalization of capital. (Please refer to the Common Understanding)

It is also interesting to note some of the comments made by the participants regarding migration. Mr. Kao of the Labor Front stated that from the historical perspective, Taiwan itself is a migrant country. On the other hand, Mr. Isak of Taiwan Indigenous Peoples Association pointed out that the Indigenous Peoples here are like "foreign" workers as to their working conditions and the need to move out of their homelands to work. Professor Tsai of Hsih-Shin University added that if most of Taiwan's industries relocate abroad because of internationalization of capital, Taiwanese workers might need to be migrants later.

What is significant about this two-day activity is that this was the first time that different labor groups sat down together to discuss the issues of unemployment and migration in Taiwan in the context of Internationalization of Capital. What is needed more to be done is to hold further dialogues between local workers and migrant workers and advocates up to the union level to foster more understanding between the two groups and create some sort of solidarity to strengthen the workers movement for the betterment of all.