Why are Taiwan's emergency rooms overflowing?

 

The photo isn't really related to the post; I took it in Japan last year. But I like the visual concept

A friend’s husband was recently in a serious accident.

"Well, fortunately we're in Taiwan," you might think, "so he'll get a stay in the hospital and effective treatment, and it won't cost much."  After all, Taiwan’s accessible, affordable healthcare is consistently well-ranked. The Taiwanese public seems to agree: in general, satisfaction with the system reaches heights that most Western nations could only dream of, reaching almost 90% in 2019. All of this is possible through far less government expenditure than in most other nations, including the US – just 6.6% of GDP. Despite this, you'd only be partially right.

My friend’s husband will indeed get affordable treatment. However, he ended up spending two days and two nights in the emergency room, in critical condition, before he was allocated a hospital bed. And his condition was -- is -- so serious that he'd been put at the front of the queue to get that bed at all! My friend had some very complicated feelings about this, noting that others had been in the ER for even longer. Some would be waiting for a bed for up to a week. 

It's not news that Taiwan has a hospital bed shortage. News outlets have been reporting on it for at least a year. A physician who spoke to United Daily News earlier this year estimated that 10-20% of hospital wards have closed. In 2023, CommonWealth reported that emergency room stays lasting more than a night had tripled, and the wait for hospital beds had doubled. Around the same time, TaiwanPlus pointed to Taipei’s Mackay Memorial Hospital closing 200 beds.

How does a system that was founded on the idea of streamlined access, and informed by research on the benefits and drawbacks of systems in other countries, end up with such a massive bed shortage, and emergency room visits that, in some cases, are as long as typical hospital stays?

The surface-level cause is clear: insufficient nursing staff to attend to the patients who would usually occupy those rooms. Nurses are quitting in droves, they say, resulting in crisis-level turnover. Taiwan regulates the nurse-to-patient ratio at approximately 1:9, with higher patient loads during the day and lower ones at night. A shortage of nurses, therefore, translates directly into insufficient beds.  

The reasons for this mass exodus are as predictable as they are insidious: as with female-dominated professions in general, nurses in Taiwan are overworked and underpaid. Taiwanese nurses are frequently asked to do overtime and have trouble taking time off, but even experienced ones earn on average just $46,000-$55,000NT per month. Although Taiwan graduates more nurses than it needs, so many quit the profession out of frustration, exhaustion or both that new graduates aren’t stemming the shortage. Despite a surfeit of students studying nursing, Taiwan is almost always several thousand nurses short of what it needs for its hospitals to function at capacity. Taiwan has approximately 310,000 registered nurses, but only about 60% are currently working.

The good thing about obvious problems, one would think, is that they tend to come with obvious solutions. Offer better working conditions with less overtime for more pay, and all of those nursing students will remain nurses. Despite this blindingly obvious fix to a problem that should have never existed in the first place, the media, the government and hospital leadership all seem to be giving themselves enemas with their own heads. 

Initially, the government threw money at the problem without taking concrete steps to ensure nurses were paid well to work reasonable hours. Billions were given to hospitals through the 2010s to address the shortage; slightly less than half of those hospitals hired more nurses or increased pay. Many did nothing, or decreased their nursing staff.   Last year, the government also announced plans to ease the examination requirements for new nurses. While allowing nurses who would have otherwise failed the exam to practice seems likely to lower-quality care, the bigger issue is that it doesn't solve the core problem: bringing in more nurses won't stop the hemorrhaging on the other end. If nurses are not paid well to work reasonable hours, even potentially less-skilled ones will eventually quit.

More recently, the government has introduced new rules that increase the nurse-to-patient ratio and overall offer night shift bonuses. Of course, higher patient loads only increase stress on nurses, and bonuses to keep nurses working to their physical breaking points do nothing to address the overwork causing them to quit in the first place. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Different levels of hospitals can offer different bonuses to nurses; unsurprisingly, district hospitals, where nurses have the highest patient load, would offer the lowest bonuses.

As one might predict, nurses aren’t keen on the scheme. Nearly 57% “reject” it, saying it won’t alleviate the shortage, isn’t fair to day nurses, and will make scheduling shifts even more difficult. 

Apparently “pay nurses fair wages to work reasonable hours” is simply too difficult for those in power to comprehend.

Taiwanese media isn’t helping much to report on the issue. UDN mentions overwork, but doesn’t discuss improved pay and promotion schemes. Instead, it examines the enrollment quota for nursing students and recommends improving safety measures, neither of which are in the same galaxy as the real problem. In the Liberty Times, the head of the Yunlin branch of National Taiwan University Hospital suggests streamlining nurses’ work to make it more efficient and less repetitive. While this isn’t a bad idea, it’s also, still, not the problem. 

Chi Shu-ching of the Taiwan Union of Nurses Association said recently that there is "no one policy that will replenish the ranks [of nurses] straightaway", but that's not entirely true. Though it will also take some time, the obvious solution of paying nurses more to work reasonable hours will be the fastest possible way to convince nursing students not to quit their programs, and registered nurses to stay or return to the field. The government keeps setting aside funds for other initiatives and incentives, so clearly it's willing to throw money at the problem. How about throwing some of that money at nurse remuneration, and not just in exchange for more work? In other words, everyone seems to know "why" Taiwan has a nursing shortage that seems more entrenched and unsolvable each year, but few really seem to understand why.

Or perhaps they do, but they can’t bring themselves to pay women a fair wage for reasonable hours of professional work. Until this changes, Taiwan may well not live up to its global reputation for accessible, prompt healthcare.

I re-wrote Focus Taiwan's crap article on foreign blue-collar workers

I'm sorry, but pro-establishment reporting that refuses to question the legality (let alone the humanity) of what the Miaoli government is doing positively enrages me. Other counties, such as Changhua, are considering similar measures and we must put a stop to it before they can do so.

To that end, I've written the absolute flaming garbage heap that Focus Taiwan put out on this issue and included a few ways you can perhaps make a difference at the end.

HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS/Over 20 foreign blue-collar workers mistreated for violating Miaoli's dehumanizing stay-at-home order

Taipei, June 8 (CNA) Over 20 foreign blue-collar workers in Miaoli have been questioned and had their details taken by police for being outside after the county government violated their human rights by ordering them to remain indoors due to a surge of COVID-19 infections in the county.

Miaoli issued an order one day earlier forbidding foreign blue-collar workers from going outside, with the exception of traveling to and from work, after four electronic companies in the county that employ foreign workers reported cluster infections. Some lawyers have pointed out that such an order is likely unconstitutional.

This is despite the fact that residents of other outbreak centers, such as the one in Wanhua, were not locked in their homes against their will. Such treatment has only been visited on foreign blue-collar workers, who remain one of the most marginalized groups in Taiwan, due to ongoing issues of abuse and mistreatment 

Despite the fact that Taiwan is supposed to be a democratic nation where human rights are respected, the order also states that workers can only travel to and from work using transport arranged by their employers or labor brokers, and that shopping for necessities must be done by a dormitory manager or designated personnel.

As of Tuesday, 21 migrant workers had been mistreated and had their details taken, including age and resident certificate number, for refusing to be treated like animals, Lin Chien-min (林建民), a section chief at Miaoli County Police Bureau's Foreign Affairs Section, told CNA.

The information provided by the questioned workers will be passed on to the county's Labor and Youth Development Department, Lin said. However, it ought to be passed on to a human rights lawyer.

The 21 migrant workers were from Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, according to the department.

Rather than re-examining its undemocratic and likely illegal actions, Tu Jung-hui (涂榮輝), deputy department head, said that the employers or brokers of the 21 workers will receive a warning on this occasion, but the department will start issuing fines of between NT$60,000 (US$2,165) and NT$300,000 based on the Employment Service Act to those who repeatedly fail to keep their migrant workers off the streets. The government who issued this order does not appear to be facing any punishment at this time.

"In accordance with the Employment Service Act, it is the responsibility of the employer or broker to give guidance and manage their workers," Tu said. "The workers are foreigners and may not know the regulations, so their brokers or employers are obligated to inform them."

Perhaps the workers in question were simply aware that they were being singled out for human rights violations despite many cluster infections occurring in Taiwanese communities. On this, Tu apparently did not comment.

A Miaoli-based Filipino factory worker, who declined to be named, had mixed feelings about the order because it makes it difficult to buy groceries and food, but had been told that it was also to protect them from the coronavirus. 

Tu said the department is not targeting migrant workers -- even though they very obviously are doing so -- and is asking for everyone to please just accept that the county government gets to act like a tinpot dictatorship unbecoming of a democracy and frankly embarrassing to the nation.

It is unclear whether the inspiration for this rule came from the way the Chinese Communist Party sealed people in their homes against their will, or their treatment of ethnic minorities. 

"We just want migrant workers to stay put for 14 days, because we want to break the chain of transmission. It is a critical period right now, and if after two weeks the situation improves we may ease up on the regulations," Tu said.

There appears to be no similar attempt to ask Taiwanese citizens to stay put for 14 days, so it's unclear why this "critical period" would affect just one group. One likely explanation is racism.

As of Tuesday, over 240 cases, including 196 migrant workers, linked to cluster infections at tech companies in Miaoli have been confirmed, according to the Central Epidemic Command Center. 

Foreign blue-collar employees are considered to be at higher risk of cluster infection because many are forced to live in crowded dormitories provided by companies. 

Humane and thoughtful to stop the spread among this community is to improve their accommodations, including crowdedness and ventilation, and to put them on the vaccine priority list. These options do not seem to have been considered by either the authoritarian Miaoli government, or the national government. This is because of racism.

In addition to foreign blue-collar worker cluster infections in Miaoli, there have also been allegations of these workers being asked to sign a declaration stating they will bear sole legal responsibility and cover treatment expenses if they are infected with COVID-19.

This is as illegal as sealing them in their dormitories.

In response, Taiwan's Ministry of Labor (MOL) said any such document will not exempt employers or brokers from their management responsibilities and fines.

Paul Su (蘇裕國), deputy head of Workforce Development Agency's Cross-Border Workforce Management Division under the MOL, said migrant workers should report to the 1955 Counseling and Protection Hotline for foreign workers if they have been asked by their employers to sign such a declaration.

Although it's difficult for everyday citizens to do something about the autocratic turn of the Miaoli national government, there are several ways to help. The first is to contact your elected representatives. The second is to sign a petition currently circulating to end this discriminatory and illegal practice. Finally, you can donate to foreign blue-collar worker organizations here, here or here.

Of course Taiwanese employers should pay foreign worker recruitment fees

I don't have a good photo, but this captures how I feel about the entire slimy brokerage system. 

Over the past few weeks there's been an ongoing feud between the Indonesian government and the Taiwan Ministry of Labor, and I'm going to state without hesitation that Indonesia is almost entirely in the right, and the Taiwanese government is almost entirely in the wrong. 

According to the Taipei Times, as COVID19 recedes in Asia and recruitment of foreign blue-collar workers resumes, the Indonesian government informed Taiwan that Taiwanese employers of foreign workers would be expected to pay 11 types of recruitment fees beginning on January 1st. These include: 

...labor brokerage fees in Indonesia for caregivers, domestic workers and fishers; and the costs of labor contract verification, criminal records certificates, overseas social security premiums and overseas health checks, as well as transportation and accommodation in Indonesia prior to departure, the ministry said.

The Taiwan Ministry of Labor has rejected the request, giving a few reasons. First, that more information is needed on these fees, as it's not clear how much they would amount to, and second, that there's an agreement in place that all changes to foreign worker recruitment must be negotiated bilaterally before they are put in place. 

That sounds reasonable on its face. If there's already an agreement that changes must be bilaterally negotiated, it would make sense to insist on sticking to that. The lack of clarity regarding what the costs actually are would be a reasonable issue to bring up. "Asking for more information" also seems like a sober move. Any government would want to ensure that its citizens are not exploited. 

This is what I would say if I believed that when it came to foreign workers, the Ministry of Labor was acting in good faith. That is, I would have to believe that if the Indonesian government came to the Taiwanese government with a list of issues with the current fee system, that the Ministry of Labor would be amenable to working out a fairer deal for the workers, even if it meant meaningfully dismantling the brokerage system and putting some fees on Taiwanese employers. 

Do you think that that's how it would go? Because I have...doubts. The Taiwanese government promotes its human rights record extensively, at least when it comes to Taiwanese citizens. Yet shows shockingly little interest in protecting the human rights of foreign blue-collar workers residing in Taiwan.

There is a clear power imbalance between relatively wealthy, industrialized Taiwan, where there is a market for overseas labor, and Indonesia, where that labor might be recruited. There is also a massive power imbalance between employers -- families desiring foreign home care employees, factory owners and companies, and fishing concerns -- all of whom have more resources than the workers they are looking to hire. 

When talking about unknown costs that might impact employers, it's crucial to remember that the system is already exploitative towards Indonesian workers. They often end up in debt before they even leave Indonesia, as a lot of these costs are foisted on them: 

Migrant workers and workers’ rights groups have long complained about having to fully bear pre-employment costs. The problem lies in the current hiring system, which allows brokers to charge migrant workers exorbitant fees that usually take years to repay and require loans even before the workers depart for Taiwan, the groups said.

I find it hard to believe that the people recruited know the costs involved before they sign up; if they're not clear to the government, how are they clear to the individuals recruited? And yet, they're expected to pay. Although much of this happens to workers residing in Taiwan, the Ministry of Labor has seemed fine with it so far.

If the government truly cared that the costs were unclear, then they would have done something about it by now rather than letting brokerage firms saddle those least able to pay with the burden.

In fact, the Taiwanese government does not have a good track record at all when it comes to the treatment of foreign blue-collar labor. Foreign domestic workers (who make up more than half of the workers in question) have fewer protections as they are not covered by the Labor Standards Act, and abuse is rampant. Slavery -- as in, you are going to work for me and I am not going to pay you, and if you disobey I will beat you -- is frighteningly common on Taiwanese fishing boats, to the point that I've mostly given up eating seafood in Taiwan. Rather than dealing with this, the government has been planning to exempt fishing workers from mandated overtime and work hour limits, in effect legalizing the exploitation. Foreign factory worker abuses are routinely uncovered. The brokerage system piles many more fees on top of this process, all of which fall on the heads of people who are already poorly paid. It gets worse. From the original Taipei Times article: 

In addition, the brokers usually side with employers to exploit migrant workers, forcing them to perform jobs that are not in their contract, migrant workers’ rights advocates have said.

 

That's not even the worst of it. They also make it harder, not easier, for abused workers to get help when they need it. In what I believe is the same case linked above, it was clear that the brokerage agency first told the worker "not to get pregnant" rather than help her deal with being raped. In a recent case, an alleged sexual assailant of a newly-arrived Indonesian worker was a broker himself. In another, it was a town councilor. 

The Ministry of Labor is surely aware of this. It's been extensively reported on, as shown by the links above, yet it continues. When their first priority is making sure that well-resourced Taiwanese (including families that can afford to hire a domestic worker) get the best possible deal regardless of how it impacts the foreigners who take these jobs, do you trust them to negotiate fairly with the Indonesian government to fix one small part of the system -- the fees?

Me neither.  

Once here, workers are routinely subject to discrimination and outright racism. One small example (and not even of the worst kind) popped up in my own community, where someone posted signs in large Bahasa Indonesia script admonishing people not to litter, with a much smaller Chinese translation below. The Indonesians in the neighborhood aren't the litterers, though -- it's mostly local teenagers who take over the community picnic tables after dark, and the occasional thoughtless grandpa. 

Every time people like me (that is, foreign professionals, often from wealthy Western countries) complain about some way in which the government doesn't factor our existence into their policies, we must remember that foreign blue-collar workers face the same issues, with far worse on top of that. 

Any government would want to ensure that its citizens are not exploited, and the Indonesian government is trying to do just that. They are quite smart to see that the Taiwan Ministry of Labor is never going to make it easy to give these workers a fair deal. It makes sense, looking at that power imbalance, and the way such workers are already treated, that they would unilaterally insist on a change. 

The brokerage system simply needs to be abolished; it offers little or no value. I know some Taiwanese employers prefer using it, but they would still be able to recruit workers without it, with far less inconvenience than the workers currently going through it face. 

Most of the other fees should always have been paid by the employers. Flights, contract verification fees, health and criminal checks? If your labor is desired so much that an employer in a foreign country is willing to go to the effort to recruit you, then they need to pay such fees, period. That would be true even if they weren't then offering low wages to the workers. Frankly, any school who wants to hire foreign teachers should also be paying for all of this, and the only reason to complain less about it is that (mostly unqualified) English teachers hired to work in buxibans generally have more access to resources than foreign blue-collar workers, and a better solution would be to cultivate more Taiwanese talent for English teaching jobs. That doesn't make it right, though.

The only good point that the Ministry of Labor has is that clarification of the fees is needed. Despite the concern being raised by Taiwan Report, it's highly unlikely that any worker would -- or would be able to -- spend exorbitant sums on pre-travel expenses in Indonesia, but forcing clarification on brokerage fees would shine a light on a slimy, diseased system and just might disinfect it a little. 

Of course, that would make the brokerage firms unhappy as they thrive, like bacteria, on that lack of clarity. It makes exploitation possible. And the Ministry of Labor is clearly more interested in allowing the brokerage system to continue and lowering costs for Taiwanese employers rather than ensuring that all residents of Taiwan, including foreign workers on its soil, are treated fairly. 

And, again, if they actually cared about clarifying the fees, they would have done so back when the country's most vulnerable residents were forced to go into indentured servitude to pay them.

Instead,  the government is allowing recruitment from other countries to cover the expected dearth in employees from Indonesia. There seems to be little interest in fixing the same system that exploits Indonesian workers, which will then presumably be able to shift its infected focus on workers from other countries. 

No worker should be pushed into a pay-to-play system: there shouldn't be fees required when taking a job. If Taiwanese employers want foreign workers enough to go to the trouble of recruiting them, they should be able and willing to pay for that, period, not foist associated costs onto the very people they are hiring. 

In Taiwan, women are the real labor movement

In both domestic and foreign labor, it's the women who are pushing the real changes

In the span of a few short years, I've noticed something regarding labor actions in Taiwan: all of the most successful ones (as well as less successful but highly visible actions) have been organized and carried out by women.

The Taoyuan Flight Attendants' strike (which you might know of as the "China Airlines strike") of 2016, called “first successful strike held by an independent labor union in Taiwan’s history" by the union director has overall been upheld as an example of what organized labor can achieve if they persist. Of course, the flight attendants themselves - remember them, occupying the road around the China Airlines headquarters? - were predominantly female, as were the organizers and public faces of the movement (including the union director, Su Ying-jung). 

The EVA Airlines strike, though less successful, garnered a high level of visibility, both domestically and internationally. Though they gained fewer concessions than the earlier flight attendants' strike, I do think it creased a sense that striking is a legitimate way to push for a better work environment rather than pushing "too far" and being taboo. Of course, most of the EVA strikers were also women.

There was also the China Airlines pilots' strike, which skewed more male (in Taiwan and globally, in the airline industry men are more likely to be pilots and women are more likely to be flight attendants. Someone's going to get mad at me for saying this, but the reason is sexism. But, it's not directly related to my point here.) The pilots' strike was also largely successful, but came on the heels of (and was perhaps spurred on or inspired by) the success of the flight attendants' strike. Other labor organizers have pointed to the China Airlines flight attendants' strike for giving their own initiatives more visibility.

China Airlines Flight Attendants' Strike, from Wikimedia Commons - you'll see both men and women engaging in the strike, but I can assure you that the organization and core of this action was predominantly female

These strikes were historic in Taiwan, in part because there really hasn't been much in the way of labor movements or strike actions in the country since the 1990s. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was a strong uptick in the number of autonomous labor unions formed, in contrast to the old-style, often conservative, government-backed unions which were mostly formed to prevent organized labor from making significant ground or challenging KMT control of and profit from the island's most lucrative industries (there's a long history of state interference and personal and party benefit from industry in post-war Taiwan and of course the military dictatorship didn't want organized labor threatening their control, and most autonomous organizations of any kind were banned - labor, women's organizations, you name it). As Martial Law was lifted and Taiwan began the process of democratization, unions in general threw off the shackles of state or corporate control and protests, strikes and various labor actions did take place, but then the movement lost steam. 

Around the same time, the Supreme Court upheld the ruling against RCA for exposing workers to toxic waste - especially carcinogenic solvents - causing high incidents of cancer among former employees. Though the RCA workers did not have all of their demands met, RCA was ordered to pay damages to afflicted former employees and their families. And, again, most of the workers involved and the people who organized to fight the lawsuit were women.

I have been looking into it and can't find a similar example of an organized group of male workers bringing a lawsuit against a former employer and winning in the way that the RCA workers did - if you know of one, please clue me in. There's a reason, however, that this case was considered historic.

While all this was going on, there has been exactly one large cross-industry labor protest of note, which took place in late 2017. Though many of the attendees were female, if you look at the photos, you'll see that huge blocs of industrial union participants were male (indeed, check out the photo of the Chunghwa Telecom Workers' Union from that link). The women I saw in attendance tended to be foreign domestic workers fighting to end their exclusion from many of Taiwan's labor protection laws, and young protesters showing up to represent a variety of related but not-quite-the-same causes, such as marriage equality and Taiwanese independence.

For a number of political reasons which are not quite relevant here, the usual activist groups and left-leaning political parties were largely absent in any organized form, though individuals from those movements did show up.

And that protest went exactly nowhere, and a lot of people felt tricked or misled by the organizers, myself included. To be honest, beyond the foreign labor groups and some of the individual young activists who showed up, the whole thing felt like conservative older men and some leftie labor activists who aren't exactly pro-Taiwan (some people call them 'pro-unification left') coming together to hold banners, and create a whole bunch of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

In short, it sure feels to me like the backbone of the labor movement in Taiwan is female. Not only that, but the future of labor movements in Taiwan are, as well. It's the women who fight back, the women who lead historic strikes, and the women who get results while the men hold signs and criticize President Tsai (but where were they when working conditions were degrading under President Ma? I remember no large labor protests from those eight years. Do you? Why, whatever could be the reason?) and nothing happens.

I've also noticed that the fact that women are leading the labor movement is simply ignored in media reporting of their success. New Bloom, which is usually quite good at highlighting issues of misogyny and gender/sex discrimination, called the China Airlines flight attendants' strike predominantly young, which is true (flight attendants in Asia skew young), but not predominantly female, although it was. They did point out that the EVA Airlines flight attendants were all female, in the context of EVA's frankly sexist and probably illegal hiring policy, but not in the context of women being the vanguard of contemporary labor movements. Taipei Times didn't bring up gender at all when discussing the flight attendants' strike or the RCA lawsuit.

EVA Airlines strike photo from CNA via Taiwan News

Of course, it shouldn't matter, because labor is labor regardless of gender. But considering historic discrimination against women in labor around the world, including Taiwan, what is considered to be overall low labor participation by Taiwanese women (more on that later, though), and the overall tendency of small and medium-sized businesses to be represented by men (regardless of who is doing most of the work) and the painting of men, traditionally, as hard-working entrepreneurs but not women (see the male-oriented phrase 黑手變頭家 which lionizes male 'black-hand' laborers for becoming successful business owners)...it does matter. It has to matter. I hope for a world where someday it doesn't, but in 2019, it does. 

One of the few examples of a group of women at the 2017 labor protest

It truly feels like women are on the front lines and taking the initiative in a society that is still oriented to respect male labor but not female labor, and getting zero credit.

This invisibility of women as the backbone of labor in Taiwan has historical roots - at least, I think it does.

Looking at Taiwan's labor history, those post-war "home industries" and "home factories" where individuals did manufacturing piecework in their homes were often seen as a way for the women of a household - who, by the way, still had to do all the regular household labor - to help the family income. Men and young people engaged in this work as well: I remember a student who'd reached an extremely high perch in an internationally-known Taiwanese company telling me about pressing plastic leaves for fake flowers with one hand while studying with a book in his other hand, because his father's income as a bus driver wasn't sufficient to support the family. But, so often, it was "housewives" who did this work.

When factories - both large and small - drove Taiwan's industrial miracle, they often looked to women as sources of labor. This was in part because they could pay them less, and in part because they expected the women to leave their jobs as soon as they married and (probably) got pregnant, meaning they wouldn't have to worry about things like severance pay or a retirement pension as they would with long-term male workers. For the smaller factories, men were often the sales and public face of the company, but women did a huge proportion of the actual manufacturing. These factories and industries were seen as 'male' - all those 'black hand' laborers working their way up in the world - but they weren't, really.

When 'family businesses' became part of the small-and-medium sized enterprise boom that helped make the Taiwan Miracle possible, who do you think in the family did all the back-end work? The 'man' (usually a husband or father in the family) would be the public face of the company, but the person keeping the books, taking stock, perhaps doing a large proportion of the actual work, and often making important business decisions was that man's wife. Mr. Chen might be the 老闆 (boss) with his own business card, but Chen Tai-tai - the 老闆娘 - is the real boss. If you want something done, don't talk to Mr. Chen - talk to his wife. Of course, she does all that and also all of the housework and child-rearing, but probably doesn't have a business card.

I say all of this anecdotally, but I've brought up my observation to countless Taiwanese friends and students and not one has disagreed, and while none of my reading states this explicitly, it's strongly implied in several of my sources.

And yet, when one reads about society in the Taiwan Miracle (there's even a book called State and Society in the Taiwan Miracle, which mentions 'businessmen' but generally not the women who actually did a great deal of the work), rarely are women's contributions to this miracle acknowledged, and they're certainly not given credit for being the backbone of this miracle, which I absolutely believe they are.

I've seen this play out in my social circle as well. One of my best friend's parents run a small business in Taiwan, and until recent years my friend's father was the 'face' of that company (though her mother also did a huge amount of the work). Recently, my friend has taken over a lot of the operations and she does get credit as the 'public face' of her family's business, but that's a modern development. But, remember a few paragraphs ago when I touched on "low labor participation" of Taiwanese women? This friend of mine doesn't draw an official salary. As far as I'm aware her job isn't official at all. While she is absolutely employed, I'm not at all sure that the government considers her as 'part of the labor force' (I don't know how they arrive at those statistics). I get the feeling that a lot of wives and daughters do in fact participate in labor outside the home, but aren't counted because it's all informal.

Informality is quite possibly a key, in fact, to why Taiwanese women get so little credit when they deserve so much. Taiwanese labor contracts - if there's a contract at all, which there often isn't in the case of family - in these small businesses are often extremely informal, looking more like agreements between relatives, neighbors or friends than formal work contracts (that's backed up by academic research, not just an observation). I count women's labor for a family business to be labor 'outside the home', though often it takes place literally inside the home (the home often doubling as an office for the family business, or being physically connected to it, in the case of family factories). Families themselves might consider this work to not be labor in a workplace but rather just..women's work that women do for the family, at home.

How much of the labor of women is simply not counted because of this?

To drive home my point, I want to leave you with a story that goes further back in Taiwanese history. In her excellent book, Anru Lee narrates how textile production was banned under Japanese colonial rule, when economic policy was essentially mercantilist (foodstuffs such as rice and sugar would go to Japan, finished goods would come from Japan to be sold in Taiwan). But cloth was scarce, especially during the war, and there was profit to be made in weaving and selling it - so families, often women, would do so. Raw cotton had to be imported and wasn't available to these women, so they'd use cotton from old clothing and household products. Then they'd use their recycled-material cloth to swaddle and carry their babies in public, where they could then sell that cloth without being noticed (women were also considered less likely by the Japanese authorities to break the law, so they wouldn't come under as much scrutiny). In this way, women contributed economically to their households, and did so entirely under the radar.

And it seems women in Taiwanese labor are still under the radar, even when they take to the streets.

* * * 
A few sources for this piece which I didn't explicitly mention (and are in print so can't be linked) but deserve credit: 


In The Name of Harmony and Prosperity: Labor and Gender Politics in Taiwan's Economic Restructuring by Anru Lee

Women's Movements in Twentieth-Century Taiwan by Doris T. Chang

The Trade Union Movement in Ma's Taiwan by Yu-bin Chiu and Uneasy Alliance: State feminism and the conservative government in Taiwan by Huang Chang-ling, both in Taiwan's Social Movements Under Ma Ying-jeou, edited by Dafydd Fell. 

Taiwan needs more strikes!

As you've no doubt heard if you follow Taiwan news at all, Taiwan ugh China Airlines pilots were on strike until very recently. Notably, while part of the negotiations to end the strike included an annual bonus (de rigueur in most Taiwanese workplaces, so I was surprised to learn that apparently pilots did not receive one? Huh), overall the strike was not about higher pay, better 'perks' or other 'benefits' not related to health and safety.

At the core of their demands were that more pilots be assigned to longer flights, so that total working hours for pilots could be brought down to a reasonable standard that would not leave them overworked and overtired. It also prioritized hiring Taiwanese pilots (including foreign pilots residing in Taiwan) over foreign pilots.

I have no particular opinion about the latter demand, but the former is simply reasonable. Nobody wants an overworked pilot; that's how disasters happen, and let's not forget that until very recently China Airlines had a poor safety record (in recent years things seem to have improved). Although China Airlines says its safety and working hour policies are within international standards, considering said safety record and how overtired pilots can be a factor in plane crashes, I question this.

Besides, it's simply not that culturally ingrained in Taiwan to strike at a particularly busy time for your employer (the strike began over Lunar New Year, one of the busiest travel times in Asia), especially if better compensation is not the employees' core demand. To take an action like this, the pilots themselves must have known that overwork and lack of sufficient cockpit crew was a major issue. The only real rebuttals to these demands were, essentially, "but that would cost money!" (yeah, a safe work and customer environment usually does) and "but we'll lose passengers!" (yup, but you'll lose more if there's a major crash and people will die), which underscores how strong a case the pilots made.

The thing is, this kind of strike has been a fairly rare phenomenon in Taiwan, especially in earlier decades. Up through the 1980s, generally pro-business, anti-labor laws governing collective action made strikes difficult if not impossible (not surprising given the repressive Martial Law political atmosphere more generally), and even in the 1990s, despite some strikes taking place, "legitimate union strikes" were still rare, and difficult to legally carry through. Although strikes have become more politically possible since then, they're still fairly rare, with an exception being the China Airlines flight attendant strike in 2016. (That the ground zero for highly-publicized strikes seems to be China Airlines also points to an anti-labor bent to their workplace culture).

The lack of strikes in previous decades wasn't just about anti-worker labor laws - there is an overall lack of a strong labor movement in Taiwan for a number of reasons. There are surely some cultural reasons for this (think of stereotypical "East Asian" work culture which values hierarchy and collectivism; there's a kernel of truth to it, although Taiwan is certainly more chilled-out than South Korea or Japan in this way).

But, more importantly, it's the result of an intentional political attempt to keep labor from organizing so as to advocate for its own needs. This has been done in a very devious way: not by union-busting or trying to dissuade workers from organizing, but by preemptively creating worker "unions" and "trade associations" that employees in a company or industry may belong to, so as to create the veneer of organized labor, but which is ultimately controlled by the companies or government, not the workers themselves. Such organizations have typically represented the best interests not of the workers but of management (or the government) and did not necessarily take on labor advocacy at all. In fact, what "management" and "the government" might want were not always different, given the history of nationalized industries / state-owned enterprises in Taiwan and how government control of industry and labor was used as a tool for political repression.

Of course, as independent labor movements coalesced, these came into conflict with the old-style "unions", there were disagreements on whether to improve the lot of labor overall or to address specific needs of specific groups of workers and...it's all very complex but essentially, that's the reason why not every political party, group and organization which claims to represent the interests of "labor" is on the same page, or even gets along. For more on this point I recommend Yubin Chiu's chapter on trade union movements in Taiwan's Social Movements under Ma Ying-jeou (I'm sorry that it will probably cost you $50 to buy the book if you wish to do so, though that's better than the earlier price of $150 - and although Chiu obviously comes from a Marxist viewpoint on labor issues, he's good at explaining the fundamentals and historical complexities of trade unionism in Taiwan).

Under such conditions, it's not surprising that the labor movement has not been particularly robust and strikes have been fairly rare in Taiwan.

Anyway, taking all of this together, Taiwan simply needs more strikes.

First, because the typical Westerner's idea of a "strike" seems to involve the workers demanding better compensation. An anti-union libertarian friend of mine has even said that he imagines that only mediocre workers support collective bargaining, because the most talented employees have a strong position from which to negotiate better remuneration - it's only the employees who are not particularly distinguished who need to rely on collective action to improve pay and benefits.

That's wrong for a number of reasons, most notably that it assumes that all collective bargaining is aimed at better compensation for each individual rather than improved working conditions for everyone as a collective whole (it also assumes that more valuable workers don't care about whether their less-highly-performing coworkers are compensated fairly, which isn't always true.) But the flight attendants' and pilots' strikes show that this simply isn't that common a motivation in Taiwan: although compensation played a minor role in these actions, the crux of what the workers in both cases were demanding had to do with overwork and general working conditions.

Although I also support strikes for better collective compensation, there's a moral high ground to striking so that you can do your job better, not just to get more "stuff". Salaries in Taiwan are quite low and organized labor has not made any strong moves to push for better pay overall. There are a lot of hurdles for labor to jump simply in terms of social awareness of this issue: it's still taken as normal that one cannot challenge one's boss; changing jobs more often to garner wage increases rather than asking for a raise at one's current job is still seen as a good strategy; and it's still quite common for workers to defend long hours in the office because they prioritize making more money over having more personal time (even though one could argue that workers deserve both reasonable pay and reasonable hours, the rejoinder is that if management won't even give workers one of these two things, it's unrealistic to expect both).

 Of all the good reasons to strike, strikes in Taiwan seem to happen for the best possible reasons. So, more strikes please.

What's more, modern labor movements in Taiwan tend to be tied to other important social issues -
this labor protest attendee is marching to "end overwork", and also showing his support
for marriage equality

Second, given the cultural and historical reasons outlined above, there's no reason to believe that Taiwan's economy or infrastructure will grind to a halt (as seems to happen regularly in France) due to a large number of strikes. Despite the two prominent China Airlines strikes, they are still seen as a last-ditch strategy by labor unions that have only fairly recently coalesced outside of management control. Without a strong history of striking, it's unlikely to become a popular or even particularly common strategy. I don't foresee any sort of slippery slope here where there's a strike every few weeks over every little issue.

And if workers feel that their complaints are valid enough, and their conditions urgent enough, that this 'last ditch' strategy is necessary, there's probably a good reason for that. More strikes please!

Even if there were a slide into strikes taking place over a greater variety of issues - pay, sex discrimination in the workplace or the gender pay gap (still real problems in Taiwan), long hours - this would overall be a good thing for Taiwan. These are intractable issues that have been allowed to fester. Employers in Taiwan have taken the attitude that "I hired you and pay you, so you have to do everything I ask of you exactly when I ask for it, even if I take up all of your free time and I will take it as a personal affront and loss of face if you challenge me in any way on this or even attempt to discuss your working conditions" for too long. Labor standards are a joke. If strikes are what it takes for management to wake up to the fact that their employees are not their chattel, then more strikes please!

Working conditions, culture and compensation have been problems entrenched in Taiwanese society for far too long, and have arguably hindered Taiwan's economic development overall, as it loses its Millenial generation to better career opportunities, pay and working conditions overseas. Greater labor organization that is not under management control will become easier to attain as workers take stronger collective action, and will be the final step to eradicating the old government/management collusion which has been both historically politically repressive and anti-worker. It has the potential to bring various social movements together (see the image above).

Yet strikes are not likely to become yet another entrenched problem in Taiwanese society given how they are already typically viewed as an action that ought not to be commonly taken.

To put it simply, Taiwan needs more strikes.

Taiwan has made me more skeptical of free market solutions

It is really hard to love Taiwan sometimes.

From The News Lens, which really hits it out of the park when they want to, Taiwan's bus drivers face atrocious conditions, and it impacts public safety:


If the driver is at fault for a major accident they will have a strike against their name, and if they accumulate three major strikes then they will be dismissed; the drivers who have accumulated two major strikes will usually spend their days off making up for their “accidents.” This is seen as a "voluntary service" so their names will not show up on the work schedule, but of course they only have time for this when they are not working.

The result is that even though they have a day off, they end up working every day of the week, and the day after volunteering, they have to drive the bus, but as they are still tired, they will probably cause another accident, receive another strike against their name and will therefore have to volunteer again… completing the vicious cycle.

and

If the driver causes an accident, the Public Transportation Office (PTO) will check their work hours within the last three days, but the company will have the legal team tamper with the shift records, so that it says the driver only ever worked a maximum of 10 hours a day, even if they have worked more....

This meant that each person in the law team shouldered the responsibility of forging documents, something we could not hide as the documents have our seals stamped on them. If the company was charged with fraud, then whichever team member was on duty that particular day would have to bear all legal responsibilities, and would be seen as an accomplice....

If the records were not changed, the company forced that team member to bear the financial burden of the fine, either upfront or from their salary. I have also witnessed the company force the rest of the legal team to pay for a fine, after the original team member had resigned. It was the most ridiculous situation ever and really emphasized how unjust the company was.

...and so much more, but go read the article. 

All of this could be avoided, and service remain the same, if they just hired more people.

But they won't, because there is no mechanism in the market that incentivizes them to not be two rungs above slavers (I'm being generous - they get two rungs!) and politically, everyone knows about these endemic problems, everyone knows companies skirt the law, and yet enforcement remains lax. It can't be anything other than intentional.

This is also why I'm skeptical of total free market solutions to problems: free market solutions generally hinge on consumers having the power to create change, but I see no way to do that here. Many people must ride the bus - some for economic or location reasons, others because they have reasons why they can't drive (I'm not willing to drive in cities, for instance, and it would be compromising another value of mine to buy a vehicle.) They can't refuse to board until conditions get better for drivers or the buses are safer to ride. They might prefer happy, rested, fairly compensated drivers, but they will have to get on that bus whether it happens or not, so companies have no market-based incentive to change their exploitative behavior.

Neither is there a solution in which people just don't take those jobs, forcing companies to offer better conditions to get new hires in the door: they just plod on, understaffed.

I simply do not see a solution here that does not involve some enforcement of government regulations. 

Yet, not solving these sorts of issues is not acceptable.

The government has sure fallen down on this one too, but unlike corporate overlords (whom we have no power to wrest from their cushy jobs), we do have some power to insist on elected officials who take labor violations seriously and are willing to fight the rot they know is in the system. Even the proposed solution in the article: to note the driver, time, place, license plate and route number - involves engaging the government, not using the miniscule droplet of power the market affords you.

I don't hold out much hope that a political or governmental solution would do much good either - not yet, anyway. Taiwan just hasn't developed a labor movement the way some other democratic have, most likely because they left Martial Law (and the rampant exploitation that could not be escaped under that system) not long ago. There hasn't been a lot of time to evolve.

While there may be some slight cultural factors, generally I believe people are people. They all know what overwork means. They all know what it is to be exploited. There's no "Confucian" ideals here keeping rotten work conditions and low pay in place. It's not passivity either: have you been to the major protests, the ones that have changed the country? Taiwan may pose as a passive country on its face, but when it gets down to tacks, it's not.

Y'all pirates. And that's great. I just want to see Taiwan take that "let's protest this shit 'till their on their knees" attitude they have toward political problems and apply it to businesses and labor issues too. And really do it. Like, occupations and hundreds of thousands, strikes across the country. 

You've burned it down before - you forced the KMT to allow democratization. That was you, not benevolent leaders kindly giving you freedom.

Now it's time to burn it down when it comes to labor. Don't wait for bosses and CEOs to do better - they won't. It is only by great force of will that I am not overtly calling them "scum". Bring them to their goddamn knees. Force them.

You've done it before, and you can do it again. 

Don't trick people into civil disobedience

I want to keep this short, because I have a grad school paper to write and, while I'm doing OK with that, I am in real danger of getting behind.

But, ever since the labor protest on 12/23, something's been bugging me and I feel like I have to say something, because it's just not been reported to my satisfaction.

I touched before on a particular moment in that protest in which the demonstrators marched up to a row of police blocking the Zhongshan/Zhongxiao intersection, forcing them to turn towards Taipei Main Station.

The march stopped - it did not continue towards Taipei Main as directed, and announcements were made that the police had blocked the route they'd been approved to march, changing the route without notice and declaring the intended march from DPP headquarters to the Legislative Yuan as an "illegal" protest. It was made quite clear at the time - well, as clear as it can be in such a mob - that we had been approved to march through that intersection and now the police were stopping us in order to cause problems or to choke the march - and therefore that the police were in the wrong.

I didn't buy that - why would the police want to create conflicts with protesters? I've covered the reasons why in my other post on this demonstration.

It also makes sense not to approve marching in that intersection, rather than to approve it and later refuse entry. The Executive Yuan is on that intersection, and it was heavily protected with barricades and barbed wire. It makes a lot more sense that the government knew perfectly well that demonstrators would try to occupy it if they were allowed into the square, and try to head that off before it ever became a potential outcome (though I would hope Taiwanese protesters have learned by now that, right or wrong, that won't be allowed again).

So we get to that line of police, who are standing in tight formation but not instigating anything (though I'm no fan of the riot shields), and people start to push back, shouting "police give way!" and starting scuffles and short fights.

It is important to remember that the demonstrators confronting the police almost certainly believed that the police were denying the protesters the right to enter a space they were supposed to be officially allowed to enter, not that they were trying to push past police to occupy a space they had been told they could not enter.
I don't believe that protests and marches must or should always stick to "approved" routes, or that they must "apply" to be allowed to protest. Protesting with government approval undermines the whole point of demonstrating in many cases. Civil disobedience has a role to play in a healthy democracy, and I am not opposed to breaking unjust rules, regulations or laws.

I do not believe it was wrong to try and enter that intersection in principle.





Remember that as I continue the story.

The police stand their ground, with some physical clashes taking place (nothing too serious - there were injuries later but not at this point). Eventually, they give way, and the demonstrators occupy the intersection. As expected, some try to enter the grounds of the Executive Yuan.

Later, I find out via the friend I was with that the demonstrators had never been approved to enter that intersection, and the police were trying to ensure we took the route we'd been approved to take.

In fact, as I found out much later - because I am a terrible journalist I suppose - the people perpetuating the false impression that the police were blocking our path were the labor union organizers, not the youth. The two groups don't overlap much, with the former being older and skewed somewhat politically differently (lots of pro-unification leftists, not necessarily green but also not Third Force)  and the latter being younger, pro-independence and classic Third Force. After getting us to break through police lines, the union contingent left, leaving the younger social activists encamped in the intersection and later playing a cat-and-mouse game with police as they engaged in civil disobedience (perhaps this time the more honest kind) from Taipei Main to Ximen to 228 Park and back again. After engineering a certain outcome, the labor union demonstrators went home.

To be honest, I feel tricked and abandoned.

Again, I don't think it's a problem to deviate from what has been "approved". I don't think we have to obey every command we're given. I don't believe in allowing the government to render protests toothless. I absolutely believe in civil disobedience.

But here's the thing - the organizers lied about the reason for the police line.  They led us to believe we were being denied a space we'd previously been promised. They led us to believe the government was trying to provoke us, that the police had no right to be there (even if you believe in civil disobedience, you have to admit - the police did have the right to be there. We also had the right to try and push past them).

To me, civil disobedience must be genuine. It must come from a social movement deciding it must follow certain ethical principles that clash with unjust laws, and working together to insist that legal frameworks accommodate just actions. It must happen honestly - it must come from the crowd based on real situations and perceptions that are as accurate as possible.

If we were going to push past that police line - and I do believe we had the right to do so - we ought to have done it as an act of civil disobedience, not because we believed that the police were barring us from a space we were "approved" to be in.

We might have done the right thing, but we did it for the wrong reasons. We did it because we were lied to. We did not do it based on accurate perceptions of the situation - what we believed was dishonestly manipulated to engineer a specific desired outcome on the part of the organizers. We were their pawns.

I do not like this. I do not like it one bit. I do not like being lied to. If I'm going to confront the police (which I generally won't do - I'm not a citizen after all and I can theoretically be deported), I want to do it knowing what the real situation is. I do not appreciate being lied to in order to steer me toward a particular action, and I bet a lot of people there that day felt the same way.

If that action was going to happen, it needed to occur honestly, sincerely, with demonstrators knowing what they were doing and why. We are not cannon fodder.

It discredits a social movement for the organizers to knowingly lie to participants to engineer their desired outcome. The government is opaque and often dishonest - the last thing we need is for those who organize to demand more transparency and accountability to the people to be opaque and dishonest as well. It discredits social movements as a whole if this becomes a regular tactic. We can't say we're the "good guys" if leaders can only get what we want by lying to us, if we allow them to keep doing it.

I'll be honest in a way the organizers were not - I'm deeply disappointed and disillusioned. I'll still turn up at protests and other civil actions to observe and report, but I'm not sure when I'll participate again.

All you do when you lie is lose our trust. We're not afraid of civil disobedience, but only if it's done honestly. Only if we really are the good guys, and we live up to higher ideals than the unjust systems and dishonest people we're fighting against.

Don't do it again, or you'll lose more than one unimportant white lady: you'll lose your supporters, the trust of the Taiwanese people, and any chance you might have had of getting the powers-that-be to take you seriously.

I am also worried that if the two main groups fighting the new labor laws can't get along and have divisions that run so deep that one would basically pull the rug out from under the other, and neither can seem to capture the public zeitgeist, Taiwanese labor is, well, screwed.

Don't be children. Grow up and do it right. Come on guys.

Young Taiwanese are leaving Taiwan in record numbers, and the reason why WILL SHOCK YOU!

Oh wait, no it won't.

The reason why is they want fair pay and reasonable hours. 

"Why is brain drain such a problem in Taiwan?" these articles always ask.

It's because pay is too low and hours are too long.

"OMG China is benefiting from the brain drain!"

Well yeah, because even though the hours there are long and the work culture generally terrible, at least you're being paid better to bend over and take it. If they could earn a competitive wage in Taiwan they'd probably stay.

"How can we resolve the brain drain problem?"

This article could have been written in four words:

FAIR PAY, REASONABLE HOURS

It's not rocket science, jeez. 

"Maybe we could solve it by attracting more foreigners?"

No.

Fair pay, reasonable hours. We are not your excuse or your get-out-of-jail (I hope literal, actual jail because some of these employers need to go to prison) free card to treat workers like garbage. 

This article seems to think China is 'trying' to woo these talented young Taiwanese. 

Maybe, but it hardly matters. It wouldn't work if Taiwan offered labor a fair shake. Most wouldn't choose to work in China if they could get - you guessed it - fair pay and reasonable hours in Taiwan. Bosses who aren't incompetent morons and a work culture that affords autonomy, a voice and a sense of purpose - maybe even the chance to grow and develop in what you do - wouldn't hurt either.

But most people would probably settle for fair pay and reasonable hours. 

This guy who somehow became a professor (wonders never cease) is not only condescending but also wrong.

The cost of living has been rising yet wages have not, which directly affects purchasing power. The difference in pay in Taiwan doesn't reflect the cost of living accurately, at least not anymore. It has nothing to do with choice of career - a total misdirection - and he doesn't seem to go anywhere with his education data.

Basically, he totally misses that Taiwanese are leaving not only because they want fair pay for the hours they work, but also to work reasonable hours. 

* * *

Nobody - at least nobody that I can find - is reporting on the basic facts:

How do you solve Taiwan's brain drain? 

Fair pay and reasonable hours. It's not rocket science. 

But working overtime helps Taiwanese earn more!

Sure, but that's because they're not earning enough now. Few people who earn enough money wish to work themselves to exhaustion. They're doing it because they need to.

OMG the low birth rate!

Yeah if people earned more they'd have more kids, anyway when they're working all the time there's no time to bone.

Again. Not rocket science. 

But why are they leaving???

LOW PAY AND UNREASONABLE HOURS

So how do we get them to stay??

FAIR PAY AND REASONABLE HOURS. 

Guys. Seriously. Come on. Quit it with your nonsense, spinning webs of words around this very simple problem that literally a monkey could solve.

Most people don't want to leave their home country. Some do - they tend to be the adventurers or those looking for something different. Many return, a few don't. That's OK. Some find the lifestyle abroad suits them better, as I did. But most are happy to stay in the country where they are from if that country is more or less a comfortable/good/safe/friendly place to live. Their friends, family and community are here. They wouldn't leave if they could get good work for fair pay at reasonable hours.

So Jesus Monkey-Juggling Christ, if you want to keep them offer them fair pay and reasonable hours.

I'm not even joking about the monkey. If you devised a test where on one side they had to run on a treadmill for like 12 hours (a typical Taiwanese work day) for ten peanuts, and on the other, they had to run on a treadmill for 8 hours for 20 peanuts, the monkey is smart enough to choose the better option.

Like...seriously. How is this hard?