Showing posts with label taiwanese_labor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label taiwanese_labor. Show all posts

Monday, September 4, 2017

What is one rape worth?

A harsh question, but here's the problem.

According to Focus Taiwan, new laws meant to strengthen protections for foreign workers include provisions punishing labor agents and employers (such as the people who employ home aides to care for their elderly parents) who sexually assault, abuse or traffic foreign workers:


In addition, the official said, if a labor agent is found guilty of sexually abusing, sexually harassing or engaging in the trafficking of foreign workers, a fine of NT$300,000-NT$1.5 million will be handed down and the individual banned from working as a labor agent.



That's a start, though I'm not convinced the fine is high enough. The article doesn't make it clear, there are also laws that carry prison sentences already on the books. 

But then there's this: 

If employers or care recipients are found guilty of sexually abusing or engaging in the trafficking of foreign workers, they will be ineligible to employ such workers for 2-5 years, and repeat offenders will be ineligible for life.

Emphasis mine, because excuse me?

There are surely also sexual assault laws that would see any one of these employers go to prison if convicted which are not mentioned in this article, but how is it that someone convicted of sexually abusing or trafficking a foreign worker might be allowed to employ another one in the future?

How is it that one assault is not enough to see them not only pay their debt to society in terms of jail time, but also be banned for life from hiring foreign workers?

How about one rape? Is it somehow more acceptable to sexually abuse than to rape, or do they face the same weak penalty?

Remember, almost - but not all - of the foreign workers whom this law would specifically protect are women who work in homes as domestic helpers and home health aides. It is already a very personal situation, to live in someone's home as their employee. Do the people drafting these new protections really think that someone who has abused such a worker should be allowed to bring another into his (or her) home?

Is there really a calculus for this? One assault isn't enough, that was just one rape you guys, five whole years ago! We should totally trust this guy to hire another worker in the same situation because come on bro, statistics surely don't show that rapists are likely to be repeat offenders, right?

Oh, they actually are?

Oops. 

According to foreign labor regulations, raping one woman is not enough, but two...well, two rapes means something. Authorities apparently can't do anything to prevent that second woman from being raped, because to them it's not a real problem until it happens twice.

So rapists are like children who are put in the time-out chair for stealing cookies?

Seriously, though. We obviously can't repeatedly punish the same crime - you serve your sentence, and you get another chance. That's how it works - but that doesn't mean criminals should have a totally clean slate. I support giving ex-convicts work and allowing them to live more or less normally, but I would not give a convicted thief or embezzler a job in a bank or finance company. I would not give a rapist, child abuser, child pornographer or pedophile a job in a school. I would not give an arsonist a job at a gas station and I certainly would not let a murderer work in a gun store. I wouldn't even let a Taiwanese fishing boat operator convicted of forcing his foreign employees to work without pay - which does happen - hire them to work on a fishing boat again.

It follows that a convicted rapist, especially one who likely specifically raped a woman living in his home who was under his employ, should be barred from bringing another woman into his home, under his employ.

How is it that one rape is not enough to make that official?

It's not even as difficult as when to bar an ex-convict from a certain type of work: it's barring someone from employing someone else for in-home services. This shouldn't be difficult.

I have to ask. are the women these one-time-rapists allowed to hire going to be told of their new employer's history? Will they have any way of knowing they are being hired by someone who was once convicted of raping someone just like them, under the same circumstances? I doubt it.

If only this were surprising: this is the same country where an Indonesian domestic worker taped herself being raped after none of the authorities she spoke to took action - her brokerage firm even saying "do what you want" (as though it were consensual!), "just don't get pregnant." She later tried to commit suicide - she'd been raped so often that authorities could not determine how many times it was. That same story was picked up by Liberty Times who made it all about how this was such a loss of face for Taiwan, rather than about what the woman had suffered and bringing her rapist employer to justice. Reporting elsewhere on this incident was hardly better, with much of the focus of the story being on the woman's "emotional irritability" and "extreme instability", which apparently made it hard for police to get a full statement.

Of course she'd be extremely irritable and emotional after not only having been raped repeatedly, but also treated dismissively by the brokerage firm. How many rapes did it take for her to be able to make that video and finally, slowly, start to seek justice? How bad was it, that she tried to kill herself? And yet, the press makes it all about Taiwan, almost implying that her "emotional instability" was part of the problem when the case came to light.

What if she'd been raped once, and hadn't made that video, because nobody expects to be raped by their employer?

Would that have been enough, or would one rape not be worth the currency needed to get the attention of authorities.

Would her rapist be allowed to hire another Indonesian care worker after a few years, bringing them into the same situation, if he'd only raped her once?

How can anyone think such an attitude is acceptable?

As much as I tout Taiwan as being ahead of the curve when it comes to women's rights and women's equality in Asia, we still have a long way to go, including - perhaps especially - in the way society treats foreign female labor.

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

My real beef with the new labor laws

I've been thinking a lot these days about what it is I don't like about the new labor regulations in Taiwan. I'm not sure why - they don't actually impact me as I don't have a single full-time job: I've been freelance since I got my APRC. Being generally interested in labor issues, however, might be a part of it. As is the fact that the new laws do impact many of my friends.

The most common complaints I hear from sources I care about are that work they want is being taken away from them, and that flexibility they want is being taken away (companies whining that now they have to compensate their employees more generously for the extremely long work hours expected of them do not draw my sympathy, I quite literally DGAF. You've been paying your people too little for crazy hours for awhile now, Taiwanese employers. Suck it.)

I'm not sure at all that these are the root problems that are causing me to view the new law with so much cynicism, though. That said, they're worth exploring.

I have a friend who poured a lot of passion and effort into a particular class, notably in developing a syllabus for that class within a larger curriculum. She had it taken away, because it was (apparently) the only way for her employer to ensure she did not work overtime that she'd have to be paid extra for (because goodness gracious, they couldn't just pay a valuable teacher more, could they? Oh no!). She genuinely wanted that work, and it was snatched from her. I have another friend who didn't necessarily want to work 6 days a week, but appreciated the financial boost she got from the longer hours. That was taken away, because the thought of just paying her more was apparently unconscionable? Or something? I have students who have subordinates who used to arrange their work schedules to work 6-day weeks for much of the month, but then take at least one extended weekend in that month so the hours worked out over a longer period, and they got a longer rest. That is no longer permissible under the new law. I'm not sure why not, but my students assure me it is not. I am not an expert.

I'm sympathetic to all of these complaints - especially the last one - but it seems increasingly obvious to me that they're symptoms of deeper problems the new labor law ignores rather than the root problems themselves.

What's being ignored here, and what the new law does nothing to fix, is the power imbalance between employer and employee. The "Boss Class" doesn't like the new law for obvious reasons: it's not so easy to squeeze their peons for more work for as little compensation as they can get away with giving. Good. But why don't labor activists like it? Because it does nothing to improve employee bargaining power or choice. It does nothing to address the basic truth of modern capitalism: the employee always, always - even in a labor-scarce market - has less power than a company. I could go into why I feel this is, but suffice it to say that labor does not gain sufficient power vis-a-vis employers in a world where shortages do not appear to be creating better remuneration and working conditions for teachers, or one in which jobs are not so interchangeable, and there might not be a similarly good job to jump to if the one you have (or the other one on offer) doesn't offer enough incentives to get you in the door, not because there is a job scarcity but because what you'd be doing would be somewhat unique. I mean, I'm a teacher, just ask me how teacher shortages in the US haven't led to better working conditions for American teachers. Even when the market favored labor in the years before the 2008 crash, lots of job openings didn't mean lots of offers in a world where one job opening would attract hundreds of applicants simply because the Internet made it easier to advertise jobs on massive websites and for applicants to send out heaps of resumes. A person can't necessarily live without a job, but a company can live with a position unfilled, and can get by with less-than-ideal employees until they find the right person, because the company will almost by definition have more resources than an individual.

As a result, I can't even think of a time in my adult life when the market has truly helped working conditions and pay improve. I'm not young anymore, that's actually quite a long time to see - in my observation at least, I don't claim to be an economist - essentially no progress.

In a better system, employer and employee would be on more even footing to negotiate not only pay and benefits, but preferred working hours and conditions. The employer could lay out their needs, and the employee could lay out what they hope to achieve, or get, out of the job. Employees who want to work longer hours and make more money could choose to do so, and those who wanted to work less, or be more flexible, but also potentially earn less, could choose that, too. Solutions might not be perfect, but they'd be workable for all involved because everyone was on a somewhat level playing field (and of course this is most obviously true in positions with hourly pay or clear paid overtime) when negotiating the terms of work. Of course, that's not how it works: your employer tells you if you're going to be working more or less, and how much money you want vis-a-vis free time is not considered. Often, keeping the laws relaxed so working hours can be quite variable don't necessarily lead to the employee getting more say - for every person who chooses longer hours, there are a few who are forced to work them. For every employee who chooses fewer, there are a few who are put on reduced schedules (but still told to be available for hours they will never work, so they can't even seek other employment) because that benefits the company.

So what you have are new laws that still allow the employer, without your input, to decide how much you work - those who want to work more can't if the company doesn't want to pay them the new overtime amounts, and those who want to work less might still be called in when they'd rather be off, or not get to choose when they are off. My friend who had a class she wanted taken from her was not given a choice to keep that class and lose another one. My friend who appreciates the money but not necessarily the exhaustion of a 6-day week wasn't given a choice as to whether she worked one or not - not before when she had to work 6 days, and not after when that was reduced to 5. In both cases her preference mattered little, and with any new job it would be the same. My students' subordinates were not given the choice to have a flexible schedule (it's mere circumstance that my particular students happen to be flexible and generous with their employees; not all employers are.)

It also does little to change the problem of every job essentially being a terrible deal - low pay, long hours, little in the way of additional benefits - in a world where you can't just not choose any job, you likely need to pick one. I have a student with this issue: she doesn't like her job, nor does she like any of the jobs on offer. But she has to take one, she can't just be unemployed. It's not possible to insist you deserve more than $22,000NT per month  (which I think everyone does - you can't live independently on $22k. It does not cover basic cost of living and therefore is inadequate) when there are no jobs offering more. English teachers can't insist on a job where they get paid Lunar New Year (which we ought to get under the law, but don't) if no job offers paid Lunar New Year (you might get compensation after you leave, if you complain, but that means little if what you actually want is a paid holiday without having to quit and threaten to call the government to eventually get that money). You can't change much where you actually work if speaking up means you could get "laid off", and the next job won't be any better.

The new laws really don't do anything to address that basic problem. I'm not sure what could, frankly, in a world where the company will always be bigger, and have more money and resources, than an employee or job seeker, no matter how "good" the market supposedly is.



Thursday, December 22, 2016

Why isn't the labor movement drawing the crowds it should?

There was an interesting piece in Taiwan News recently about why marriage equality, not the labor movement, is attracting demonstrators and catching the public eye. I would especially like to learn more about traditionally Taiwanese representations of gayness as I know basically nothing about it.

I don't agree with every conclusion - in fact, although marriage equality impacts a small segment of the population, it affects that segment in a huge way, and is something of a social litmus test for the kind of country Taiwan wants to be.

I do not think allowing bigots to score a point by allowing civil partnerships is the answer: first, because I don't believe in giving in to bigots (could you imagine telling, say, African Americans to compromise with racists during the Civil Rights Movement and accept less than full equal rights? This suggestion doesn't feel different), especially when they are a small minority with outsize influence that it's time we cut down, and secondly because it's a straight-up human rights issue.

So, I cannot accept the conclusion that we need to let marriage equality go and focus on labor: in fact, I think we should ramp up marriage equality, get it passed quickly, and then focus on labor. I am not a fan at all of the argument that we should delay conferring full civil rights on a group because they happen to be a small group and because some bigots don't like it. I do not think a new law - rather than amending the civil code - will bring about the realization that marriage equality is okay, leading to later change in the code. It'll get stuck there. We'll try to push for the civil code to be changed, only to be told "but we HAVE marriage equality, can't you just accept that and move on?" The bigots will not stop being bigots, they'll bring out the same old fight. It'll be a bureaucratic nightmare, a postponement of the real battle. I'm not into that, sorry.

My views, however, mean little - I can't vote and I can't organize. It's what the Taiwanese are inspired by that counts. I have a few anecdotal thoughts for why labor is not attracting crowds but marriage equality is:

The marriage equality crowd is a young crowd, many of whom do not intend to accept jobs with poor working conditions when they graduate. 

This is the generation that gets involved in public life, that goes abroad, that starts their own business, that goes freelance, that moves back to their hometown to open a cafe or run their family business. Some of them are surely on the naive side, thinking they have an escape route from the hell that is a typical job in Taiwan, and some will likely come to regret their idealistic assumptions. For many, however, that is a fuzzy eventuality, a gray cloud on the horizon. They have gay friends now, this means more to them.

Turton is right about one thing, though: marriage equality is cool and trendy and progressive, but labor movements often call to mind the sad reality that most of us eventually end up working for The Man. They're not young, hip or cool (and, as the article also got right, they don't tap into an identity one can display through consumption). When you either don't want to think about your eventual working life, or don't think it will happen to you because you'll never be stuck in some interminable cube monkey job, your heart is just not going to be in a labor protest.

I just don't happen to think all of that identity-broadcasting done by demonstrating for marriage equality is necessarily a bad thing. We all do things to display our identity. I do it, Turton does it, we all do it. For some, it really is a representation of who they are (if you're gayer than a Christmas tree and act like it, then is that not authentic rather than an identity you have chosen to display through consumption? If you really are someone whose fire gets lit by human rights causes, as I am, are you not being authentic in displaying that identity even if through consumerist means?

This is about more than just being fashionable, or a way to display an identity

A friend pointed this out, and I agree. Yes, there is consumption, identity display and some amount of being attached to a fashionable cause when it comes to marriage equality, but 250,000 people don't turn out on a Saturday for that reason alone. It is far more than the core LGBT+ fighting for equal rights and other activists passionate about the cause, and shows a deeper engagement than just being trendy or hip. You might get a few of those, but you don't get 250,000, especially when they were not brought out by tight, cohesive church networks the way the anti-equality folks were with their far smaller numbers, if it's just people showing off how cool and progressive they are. People do care, there is real support, and it does go deeper than strutting around in order to cement an identity for oneself.

Honestly, the labor movement doesn't get the word out effectively. 

I don't know about you guys, but I always hear about marriage equality events well in advance, and can plan to attend them. Labor protests? I read about them the next day from Brian Hioe, or see them happening when I am already in my pajamas. I don't know until it's too late that I could have been there. I don't know how they hope to attract more people if people don't even know something is going on.

Marriage equality seems solvable, labor issues do not

I think a lot of activists know they have society and even much of the government on their side in the marriage equality debate. They know this is winnable. They know it's winnable soon - a big victory in a short time over an opponent that is outmatched. The fight against the Boss Class will be a long, grueling, interminable one with a huge amount of media, money, crony capitalists, corrupt politicians and straight-up asshats bearing down on them. It will be another Sunflower Movement, if we let it get that far (and I do think labor has the potential to be that, but few seem to agree) - an angry group of activists up against insane odds. Perhaps the nation is still a bit hungover from the last big movement, and wants a break, to achieve something that can actually be done.

Hell, the New Power Party has a pretty strong labor platform (though as always I do not agree with their past resistance to relaxing the laws governing foreign workers), and they can't seem to get anywhere. If they can't bring the crowds, or effectively stand up to the Boss Class, how can anyone?

Marriage equality, though? Dude, we can do that.

It's not really clear, due to deliberate muddling, what the labor movement really means or stands for

Which labor movement are we even talking about? The one opposed to pension reform? The tour guide protest? The fakey-fake "Sunflower imitation" protests the KMT organizes because it just does not get civil society at all? Or the real labor protests? It's easy to be confused. I often have to think hard about a demonstration - if I even know it's going to happen - to see if this is a group I actually agree with, or just more civil servants unhappy about pension reform when most workers in the private sector don't even have pensions, or only nominally do. The labor movement needs to clarify who they are, what they want and who they are not, or they're just not going to bring the crowds.

Workers themselves seem to vacillate between grumbling about the situation - and I agree that it is dire - and talking about how "this is just the way things are", not complaining, not talking to their bosses, not going to the company to air grievances. If workers won't even tell their bosses what they don't like, how can we expect them to get riled up enough to protest? And how can we expect others to come out on behalf of them when they won't stand up for themselves at work?

The fight for more vacation days was, to be honest, uninspiring

I'm sorry, I just can't work up a lot of screaming, placard-waving enthusiasm over keeping Chiang Kai Stupid Shek's Stupid Birthday. I know a vacation day is a vacation day and I shouldn't fret so much, but...I just can't get over that. I don't know about the rest of the Taiwanese public, but it's not a galvanizing message.

Add to that the fact that we've only had these extra seven days for one year: in the past ten years in Taiwan I never had those days off, and suddenly I do. It's very confusing, and I don't feel passionately about keeping them because they sort of randomly appeared this year rather than being something I'm used to that fits into the rhythm of the year.

So, it just doesn't seem like a smart route to go in terms of igniting a fire in people to come out and fight.

It is uninspiring to fight for better labor laws when the ones we have are not enforced. 

A friend brought up this point (and the point above about workers who don't complain) and I agree enough to include it. Sure, we need better laws, but what good is it if the ones we already have are more or less never enforced? Who cares if a new law limits overtime if you can't get your boss to abide by the current laws regulating overtime? What are we fighting for, exactly?

That young marriage equality crowd has free time, workers just have stress

...and workers generally do not.

Those that do face family pressure - always a big deal here - to keep their shitty job and not rock the boat, or to 'take what you can get'. It's a society that is very accepting of market trends in terms of how workers are treated - in the US the left screams and howls, rightfully so, when capitalists say that a fair wage is the lowest wage someone is willing to work for, but Taiwan is far more accepting of this explanation. Something about that "this is the best we can do, this is the market, we have to accept it" attitude has to change.

Workers are also less idealistic. They've done jobs, they know how the world is and how most of us eventually get sucked in (for the record, I'm in my 30s and have still managed to not get sucked in, but I may well die old and poor). They are often focused on themselves and their families - by then, most have them - and improving their own lot rather than fighting for the betterment of all. This is another attitude we have to change.

In the meantime, though?

Honestly, you'll find me in the street, rainbow flag in hand.

Thursday, October 27, 2016

Fighting to keep Chiang Kai-shek's birthday holiday? Really?

IMG_4850

Just checking in - I'm still working quite hard collecting stories of immigration troubles, and a few of them are truly tragic. But, I've got to fact-check and figure out how I'm going to structure this post, so it's looking like it will be something of a longer-term project. Bear with me, and I'll keep people updated. I have a few more people to interview, some folks to call, some visits to make etc. before I even start writing. This is on top of preparing to go to grad school and doing a TEFL professional development project involving action research. Oh, and working too.

I also have a really nice long post on Yunlin County coming up, so keep an eye out for that.

In the meantime, I just have to say I'm not sure what to make of the whole 'seven holidays' snafu. It took awhile to even figure out which holidays are being cut (turns out it's the 7 extra days we randomly got this year and not some other holidays). This stands to reason, but was not immediately obvious and I needed to be sure before I commented.

So...I dunno. On one hand, I am all for more holidays. Taiwanese work far too long, and laws limiting employers from forcing them to work too much overtime are not very effective; at least, they are not enforced well at all. In such a pro-boss hierarchical culture I am not sure they ever will be, though Taiwan has surprised me before. And I certainly do not think the "one day off, one flexible rest day" is a good idea. Everybody knows they'll have to work on that day and probably get cheated out of overtime pay (even if they don't, some people would rather have that day off anyway). This is a country where bosses regularly force workers to ignore typhoon days to come in, which is deeply illegal! It's just window dressing on the real goal of re-instituting the six-day work week, and it's bullshit.

I honestly think we should have more holidays, and days off on Friday/Monday for holidays that fall on a weekend. But I can't really wrap my head around the protests to the cuts of these particular holidays.

Some of them are fine - Teacher's Day, Constitution Day (created so Chiang Kai-shek's wife, Soong Mei-ling, who was a Christian, could have Christmas off). But some of them are totally batshit - who in their right mind wants Retrocession Day or Chiang Kai-shek's birthday, or even Sun Yat-sen's birthday (less offensive but equally a KMT import rather than a reason for an authentic Taiwanese celebration)? It's really odd to see a bunch of Taiwan-identifying civic activists and labor rights protestors rallying around the Legislative Yuan - the same sort of people who fought against CSSTA and are generally strongly pro-Taiwan and pro-independence - to save the holiday reserved for a murderous dictator, the worst person Taiwan has ever known.

(Side note: I find it hilarious that Chiang Kai-shek's birthday falls on Halloween, because his ghost truly haunts Taiwan still).

All this means I'm not sure which side to take here. I want holidays but not those holidays - an angle I don't see reported in the press at all. I fear my views might be closest to those of the KMT and that is really terrifying and not okay.

I also want 5-day work weeks, and I want holiday make-up days for those that land on a weekend. Basically, I want the government to tell the Boss Class to shove it, that they have to give their workers adequate time off whether they like it or not.

So I think I'll abstain from this protest and instead rally quietly for, I dunno, Formosa Day (commemorating the Kaohsiung Incident), Nylon Cheng Day, Declaration of the Republic of Formosa Day (for the date in 1895 when Taiwan declared independence and held onto it for several months following the departure of the Qing), Sunflower Day (haha, probably not going to happen), White Lily Day, Democracy Day.

As much as I want more holidays for the working people of Taiwan, I just can't bring myself to insist that we should keep stupid buttclown Chiang Kai-shek's stupid birthday, and it will never stop being weird to me to see pro-Taiwan activists demanding it.

Thursday, July 21, 2016

A sunflower by another name doesn't get any attention...yet

If you read New Bloom, and I hope you do, you might be one of the only people in Taiwan who knew about the workers' hunger strike in front of the Legislative Yuan these past two days. The workers held the strike to protest the DPP government's intent to cut the number of public holidays from 19 to 12 and, for all intents and purposes, legislate away the 2-day weekend that Taiwanese workers fought hard for not that long ago. 

Considering that the DPP rose to power in part on a promise to be more considerate of labor interests rather than blindly sucking corporate dick like the KMT (is it too early to say I miss the unholy triad of gangsters, property developers/big business and politicians that defined pretty much every stretch of KMT rule the country has known? Do the DPP have their own gangster-businessman handjobs to give?), this is basically a slap in the face of workers. I cannot imagine the DPP will be treated kindly at the polls if this legislation passes as-is. It also has me taking seriously the idea that the DPP is a far more conservative government than we'd thought they'd be, mirroring the KMT in ways that society never wanted them to.

What's more, despite the NPP vowing to fight for labor rights, they didn't seem to take much of an interest in the hunger strike either. I have my own issues with the NPP not caring about all labor in Taiwan (they certainly don't care about foreign labor, and no I will not shut up about it as that affects people I know directly and keeps me from fully supporting the NPP), and this is additionally worrying. What are they fighting for if not this?

Well, anyway, the strike ended with nothing achieved. While some labor protests gain social support (see the China Airlines strike just recently), this one lay flaccid and ignored. As New Bloom noted, activists largely did not seem to notice, and those who did seemed supportive but didn't necessarily show up in big enough numbers.

My theory as to why: China Airlines' staff striking meant major inconvenience for travelers and business alike (and not just the airlines' own business). They not only blocked up Nanjing Road, but managed to shut down a fair amount of air traffic. Of course that was going to be more electrifying. Sitting outside the Legislative Yuan, where you affect precisely no one who isn't used to this sort of thing, is simply not going to be as effective. Smarter would be to organize and threaten nationwide strikes on the holidays this new legislation would cut were it to go into effect.

But here's the thing: the government still ignores this at its own peril. The students and associated supporting activists do too. Also, the media. And possibly you.

If you don't remember how the Sunflower movement gained momentum, go ahead and read J. Michael Cole's Black Island: from the Next Media acquisition to anti-nuclear protests to Yuanli to Dapu to Huaguang to Losheng to the Wang residence, the Sunflowers didn't just appear on the scene, suddenly inspired as they never had been before to shut down the legislature. (Note: a lot of what I'm going to say about them is partly from my own experience and partly from re-reading about that time in recent Taiwanese history through that book. Credit where credit is due).

They fought many small, often unnoticed battles and usually lost. The Dapu homes are gone. Huaguang is gone. People didn't pay attention to them as the DPP held opposition rallies that attracted lots of people and achieved nothing, and then one day the momentum everyone had been ignoring on the sidelines (or calling "naive" and "irrational" though it was anything but) exploded in a wildly successful social movement that has quite possibly changed the future of the country.

Side note: notice how I call Taiwan a "country" and aggressively do not call it an "island" although it is one. "Island" is very common in English-language media reporting on Taiwan, but it's a cop-out, a way of being technically correct without having any nuts whatsoever. Taiwan is a country. CALL IT ONE, for chrissakes. Or are my nuts bigger than yours?

This image is "extra large", LIKE MY NUTS.
Anyway, image stolen (sorry, but my nuts need to be seen) from here
Also, I do not recommend you Google "my nuts" to find this image. 

Anyway, those who were surprised were not paying attention. That's on them.

As I see it, it's starting again, but this time with workers. They might lose this fight, and the next one, and the one after that. Their hunger strikes may go unremarked-upon, and the parties that came to power promising to work with them may betray them. But, like the students, they have all of the markers of becoming the next thing that shakes the country.

First, they are right. No question. Fuck the Man. Seize the means of production. All that great stuff. Taiwanese workers are overworked and they are underpaid, and business assholes have been exploiting them for far too long. This has to change.

They are not afraid to strike, and have been inspired recently by the China Airlines strike and the successes it brought. Hopefully, they'll learn from that and conduct more successful strikes in the future.

Worker strikes, if done well, have the potential to really inconvenience a lot of people - rather like occupying the Legislative Yuan but being so peaceful and reasonable that the police don't dare to use force (which they shouldn't). Remember, you need workers to do things. All things. Like literally all of the things. If you like things getting done, you need workers. If workers refuse to work on a large scale, or in very targeted ways at very targeted times, that is going to suck for everyone. This is a good thing. It's actually an advantage the students did not have.

Though this particular protest went unnoticed, like the early student activist protests that predated the Sunflowers, there is a lot of potential there for broad public support, especially against the well-defined demon of Business Assholes. It's true that they have a lot of Business Asshole enemies and some Stockholm Syndrome types (I wonder if my good buddy who is heretofore banned from commenting will pop up and be one of these! You won't see his comments because I won't publish them, but hey buddy! Stay angry. It's fun. Never change) will complain about the inconvenience rather than consider the reasons for such drastic action, but that we know who the enemy is and most Taiwanese suffer under the current worker-business status quo means the potential is there to get the country mobilized behind them (and vote for...who? I don't know. When the KMT and DPP both fail you and the NPP is not doing as well as you'd like, who do you vote for?).

This looks like it's going to be one of those long fights - Business Assholes don't give up easily. What this means is lots and lots of protests that end up training the workers who want better conditions to engage in civil revolt more effectively, much as the activists who became the Sunflowers learned a lot from the protests that helped the movement coalesce. You are going to see workers going after what they want far more effectively - I'd put money on it. If I had a lot of money, which I don't, because teaching English at a professional level in Taiwan does not pay well.  (Again a note: that's not a complaint about my various current employers. It's a complaint about the state of ESL education in Taiwan and the world in general).

Regarding that last point, the workers also have the benefit of coalescing, clarifying their message and engaging in more effective civil disobedience while the rest of the country is mostly ignoring them. Their mistakes won't be particularly public. I noticed that the student leaders were incredibly well-versed in the history of effective nonviolent civil disobedience. Someone for sure has read up on their King and their Gandhi. I can only hope the workers have leaders who are well-read in the history of labor movements and what has worked.

Finally and perhaps most importantly, they are persistent, because they really believe in what they are fighting for, and the conditions they are fighting against are truly untenable and have been going on for far too long. It is reaching a tipping point. Taiwanese actually drop dead from overwork on a startling basis, and almost everyone - even if they pretend otherwise - know that the work is far too grueling hours-wise and far too low-paid to be something Taiwanese give up and settle for. The idea that this is just going to go away is nonsense. It's not, because there is no option to give up. The consolation prize - a continued shitty work life and not even earning good money for it - is not acceptable. So they are not going to stop pushing.

And when you won't stop pushing because losing is not an option, you tend to break through and succeed, jumping over so many proverbial fences and storming so many proverbial legislatures eventually.

I do hope people start to pay attention. The youth movement needs to pay attention, certainly - even those who are still in school are going to be entering the Taiwanese working world soon. Anyway, they care about the future of the country - so not only will these workers be them soon enough, it would be a very unfortunate thing indeed if they missed where the next big movement was coming from and did not contribute their own experience, followers and support to this very important issue.

Business Assholes need to pay attention because otherwise they are going to be shocked when they wake up one day and find they can't grind Taiwanese down to nubs day after day for circus peanut pay.

Foreigners need to pay attention, because we need to fight for better labor rights, protections and immigration rights too. Foreigners not in Taiwan need to pay attention, because all your semiconductors are belong to us. 

Everyday people need to pay attention, because life is eventually going to start to get difficult for them.

And the media needs to pay attention, or they are going to be as caught off-guard as they were by the Sunflowers. Something tells me that this is exactly what is going to happen, though, because the Taiwanese media.

I don't know what they will be called - which flower or berry or something entirely new - perhaps the White Orchids, because as much as you mistreat an orchid it stubbornly blooms? - but they are coming, and you'd best wake up.

Friday, June 24, 2016

The China Airlines strike and outdated expat narratives: Confucian values are REALLY not the problem

Something I've learned: I often have thoughts kicking around in my head for awhile, and I try to write blog posts about them, only to find that they come out ponderous, aimless and full of questionable or dull tangents. An important element of focusing my thoughts is to have some sort of catalyst, some it's-happening-now event to bring it all together into what I really want to say.

That bit of navel-gazing aside, for the past month or so a pushback against the conventional expat narrative of Taiwan being bogged down by "Confucian values" has been kicking around in my head - ever since I wrote about how, while bad management is a problem in Taiwan, "Confucian values" aren't what's keeping Taiwanese workers from taking the initiative at work rather than saving their best ideas for their own start-up small businesses. Long work hours and low salaries are because only a fool would share their best ideas with someone who exploits them through overwork and substandard pay. Taiwanese are no more fools than anyone else, so it makes sense that they wouldn't give their best work to bosses who are effectively narcissistic, self-serving nitwits at best and figurative slave masters at worst. (Obviously #notallbosses blah blah blah).

Well, it's taken the China Airlines zeitgeist to prod me into finally posting about it.

If you think "Confucian values" are Taiwan's biggest problem, you haven't been paying attention and your narrative is outdated. The same old story of "Taiwanese workers are passive, they endure long working hours for low pay and don't complain because Confucius or something" simply isn't the case anymore, and if you've been watching the country change, you'd know it hasn't been the case for awhile (if it ever was, though I'd argue the Ma years were notably turgid).

First and foremost, strikes like the China Airlines one in terms of rhetoric and scale don't just pop up out of a society that is passive, supplicant to authority or not actively looking to improve their own and their country's lot. They don't spring fully formed from a "poor exploited Taiwanese who don't even know they're exploited or if they do, they don't fight back" pile of bullshit. They spring from a long-running activist movement that has bracingly modern values at its core (as I have argued), modern enough that we Westerners, who often think we've got the market on progressivism cornered, ought to sit up and pay attention.

This isn't just a big deal because of one strike, this is a big deal because it's been coming for awhile, reveals Taiwanese society to not be some caricature of a cliched 2500-year-old philosophical system, and because it has implications across every industry where laborers are exploited (which is basically every industry, including English teaching. Yes, that too).

By the way, if you read any one thing on the strike, make it the link above.

This has been brewing for awhile - if you stop and talk to any given group of Taiwanese labor, you'll find that they are well aware that they have been exploited for awhile, and society has been collectively, often tacitly, but perceptibly, working on a solution-cum-backlash. You can see it in the increased rhetoric around worker-led (as opposed to "official") unions, in the New Power Party's pro-labor platforms (well, pro-labor for citizens, apparently we foreign workers don't rate and I'm still pissed about that), in the annual demonstrations on Labor Day, in the economic concerns of the student movement, in the very common desire to quit one's exploitative job and strike out on one's own.

Where out-of-touch pontificating expats come up with these tableaux of beaten-down workers who don't know what's best for them, kowtowing to boss, family and religion, I see a country full of people dreaming of something better and knowing full well, in 21st century terms, what that means.

Simply put, people who gather at midnight to announce a pre-meditated strike that almost reminds one of siege warfare (or maybe I've just been watching too much Game of Thrones) and who talk of improving the condition of labor across Taiwan, freeing workers from onerous hours and unacceptably low pay are not only not victims of "Confucian values", they prove that "Confucian values" never were the problem (or never were enough of a problem to put up much of a barrier to the new tide of activism). People who dream of quitting and opening their own businesses, whether they are smaller versions of the businesses they already work for or a total departure down a culinary or artistic road, but are toughing it out for now, are not victims of "Confucian values".

The electorate's increasing willingness to listen to the youth - a concept somewhat (but not entirely) non-Confucian, and the newly-elected political elite's willingness to do the same, even dropping charges against the Executive Yuan occupiers saying that the "values of the Sunflowers have become widely accepted across the country", are further proof. It's such a deep and long-coming sea change that even the newly-minted opposition are trying to co-opt these values in the weirdest, most discordant and least appealing ways. KMT gonna KMT I guess.

The citizenry's increasing willingness to occupy, to demand, to escalate, to take the fight to social media - none of this screams "Confucian values"...the key being that that's not only the case right now, but it proves that it hasn't been the case for awhile, because these sorts of sea changes don't sweep in like tsunamis. They slowly build like earthquake pressure. The only difference is you can't predict earthquakes, but this could be seen coming since the run-up to the Sunflower occupation.

In sort, this is 2016 AD, not 500 BC (and it's kind of insulting to imply that a culture has not sufficiently evolved in those two and a half millenia). The Taiwanese aren't getting their modern values by looking to the West, but by looking within themselves. And they're not chained to a 2500 year-old-philosophy because they are so clearly willing to fight back. I know I'm repeating myself here, but I want to drive that message home.

To go back even further, I'd like to add that if the main problems in Taiwan could really be traced back to "Confucian values", you not only wouldn't have China Airlines workers striking now, the Sunflowers in 2016, and employees who dream of quitting and starting their own companies, you also wouldn't have had several of the pro-democracy and national identity incidents that have defined modern Taiwanese history. There was nothing Confucian about the uprising that led to 228, the Kaohsiung Incident, Nylon Cheng's self-immolation, the dangwai or the White Lilies, either. The willingness to think, talk, plan and finally fight back in spectacular fashion - non-Confucian but wonderfully modern things all - is truly not new to Taiwan.

Because I like to ramble, two more things before I release your eyeballs, if you are still reading.

The first is that if you think Confucianism is all about the big boss beating down the little guy and hierarchical systems of tyranny, whether it's civil or private, you have a cliched and inaccurate view of Confucian thought. I'm no fan of Confucius, I'm more of a "hey guys just chill" Daoist type myself even though I am personally not very chill, but this is absolutely not what Confucius espoused.

He was all about those in power exercising restraint, openmindedness and responsibility. In not just being leaders because they felt entitled to be leaders, but actually leading. Not beating down their underlings because they could, but nurturing them and getting their best work from them. I suspect if he were alive today he'd be a policymaker at best, a self-proclaimed management guru at worst (I strongly dislike management gurus and business cliches).

I mean, take a look at some of his actual "Confucius Says" proverbs. "A tyrannical government is worse than a tiger" (課徵猛於虎) - that could apply not only to an actual government but a figurative management structure. "Bend down thine ear" (Chinese coming when I have access to my hilariously outdated book of Chinese idioms again) - he affirmed the right of leaders to exercise authority, but admonished them to listen to their underlings. His whole philosophy boiled down not to kings beating up subjects or managers beating up workers, but to society moving together in harmony, as if dancing in sync to music (I think he actually said something like that at one point).

I'm still not a fan, but that Confucianism - *actual* Confucianism - is not necessarily a problem in society, if understood and applied correctly. The West doesn't actually have all the answers.

The second is that I just want to say I am blown away by the maturity and adroitness of the activist movement (all of it, from the workers to the students). They remind me not of hippies - though there's a touch of Bob Dylan in them for sure - and not of union strikes or populists but of Gandhi-style nonviolent resistance (and as Gandhi said, there is nothing passive about nonviolent resistance - in that way too they are not held back by "Confucian values" in the more cliched, or even the true, sense. Even in true Confucianism it's on the leaders to do the right thing, there isn't much room for subjects to resist, even nonviolently). Someone has read up on the Indian independence movement, the Civil Rights movement, the LGBT rights movement, the women's suffrage movement, even as the impetus comes from within the strikers and activists themselves.

They are facing their problems with the only route available to them - the only route that has ever actually worked (look at history - it's rare that violence settles things well, though I can think of a few exceptions. Usually, the only way to get something done and build after you tear down the old order is nonviolent resistance). And they know it. I truly admire them for it.

There is absolutely nothing at all Confucian about that.