ML Publication
Migrant workers are not scapegoats!
Lorna Kung Hope Worker's Center
The dispute between Thai and Filipino laborers was the largest conflict among migrant labors in the history of labor importation in Taiwan. The "collective conflict" was the result of long-term suppression! The conflict did not arise from racial conflicts between the two groups of workers, but was caused by work pressures, high-stress management, as well as by the company's decision to use Filipino workers as foremen for Thai workers. The conflict thus has class and not racial roots.
As members of a more developed country, we should be grateful to each worker. We do not deny the work that migrant workers have done, work that has built up Taiwan's infrastructure, allowed Taiwan's economy to continue to grow, and led to high consumption rates in some areas. We should not forget this because the workers involved are migrant workers, from less economically developed Southeast Asian nations. Yet migrant workers, because of language and cultural differences, and the combined oppression of labor brokers and an exploitative working system, are unable to stand up and speak their peace in Taiwanese society. This is the beginning of their nightmare as a structurally weak group in Taiwan.
Migrant labors have been used as scapegoats in a number of recent events! When discussions over flight links between Taiwan and the Philippines were still going on, the Council for Labor Affairs began to use Filipino migrant laborers as a bargaining chip when the government of the Philippines belittled Taiwan's representatives. The government made scapegoats out of Filipino migrant workers in Taiwan to support their own nationalism! The government has continued to import foreign workers into Taiwan regardless of the high unemployment here, leading to complaints from local workers and aboriginal peoples that migrant workers have taken their jobs. The CLA, and capitalists, who have profited from the importation of migrant labor, continue to import cheap labor, turning the migrant workers in scapegoats for their immoral labor policy! The fighting among migrant workers at Formosa Plastics led society to link the importation of migrant workers with an instability and a lack of security, but overlooked the improper management, substandard living conditions, and horrendous working conditions that are the real causes of the event. The media's simplistic portrayal of the migrant laborers as a ticking time bomb was yet another way of scapegoating the migrant laborers.
With brokers' fees reaching as high as NT$150-200 thousand, low wages and poor working conditions, immoral employers and brokers, all kinds of company restrictions and repatriation for the small infraction, if the working conditions of migrant workers in Taiwan does not improve, it will bring down the overall working conditions in Taiwan! If we continue to misunderstand and stigmatize migrant workers, we will only be working in the service of capitalists and the state.
The dispute between Thai and Filipino laborers was the largest conflict among migrant labors in the history of labor importation in Taiwan. The "collective conflict" was the result of long-term suppression! The conflict did not arise from racial conflicts between the two groups of workers, but was caused by work pressures, high-stress management, as well as by the company's decision to use Filipino workers as foremen for Thai workers. The conflict thus has class and not racial roots.
As members of a more developed country, we should be grateful to each worker. We do not deny the work that migrant workers have done, work that has built up Taiwan's infrastructure, allowed Taiwan's economy to continue to grow, and led to high consumption rates in some areas. We should not forget this because the workers involved are migrant workers, from less economically developed Southeast Asian nations. Yet migrant workers, because of language and cultural differences, and the combined oppression of labor brokers and an exploitative working system, are unable to stand up and speak their peace in Taiwanese society. This is the beginning of their nightmare as a structurally weak group in Taiwan.
Migrant labors have been used as scapegoats in a number of recent events! When discussions over flight links between Taiwan and the Philippines were still going on, the Council for Labor Affairs began to use Filipino migrant laborers as a bargaining chip when the government of the Philippines belittled Taiwan's representatives. The government made scapegoats out of Filipino migrant workers in Taiwan to support their own nationalism! The government has continued to import foreign workers into Taiwan regardless of the high unemployment here, leading to complaints from local workers and aboriginal peoples that migrant workers have taken their jobs. The CLA, and capitalists, who have profited from the importation of migrant labor, continue to import cheap labor, turning the migrant workers in scapegoats for their immoral labor policy! The fighting among migrant workers at Formosa Plastics led society to link the importation of migrant workers with an instability and a lack of security, but overlooked the improper management, substandard living conditions, and horrendous working conditions that are the real causes of the event. The media's simplistic portrayal of the migrant laborers as a ticking time bomb was yet another way of scapegoating the migrant laborers.
With brokers' fees reaching as high as NT$150-200 thousand, low wages and poor working conditions, immoral employers and brokers, all kinds of company restrictions and repatriation for the small infraction, if the working conditions of migrant workers in Taiwan does not improve, it will bring down the overall working conditions in Taiwan! If we continue to misunderstand and stigmatize migrant workers, we will only be working in the service of capitalists and the state.
posted by @ 11/12/1999 05:33:00 AM
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