The Control Yuan has requested the Ministry of Labor (MOL) to improve its vetting and monitoring mechanisms after concluding that the ministry had failed to act effectively in a case involving 91 migrant workers being tricked and forced to work for lower pay in Taiwan.
The top government watchdog approved a corrective measure request to be issued to the MOL on Wednesday after reviewing a report produced by Control Yuan members Wang Mei-yu (???) and Wang Yu-Ling (???), who both investigated the case based on prosecutors' indictment and government records.
According to the report, Diao Yu-hong (???), the representative of Taichung-based "Hong Yu Manpower Agency Co. (????????)," and three other people established 21 companies and four factories from July 2017 as fronts to create a demand for migrant workers.
After gaining permission from the MOL and relevant government agencies, Diao, a Vietnamese woman who became a naturalized Taiwanese citizen, then introduced migrant workers from Vietnam to Taiwan and recruited migrant workers already in Taiwan for the front companies and factories, the report showed.
The agency then made the migrant workers, who had originally been recruited for manufacturing jobs, work at construction sites instead, while docking their wages, according to the report.
The migrant workers were unable to refuse the agency because of language barriers as well as high brokerage fees owed by them to the agency, the report said.
At a press conference on Thursday, Wang Mei-yu said that while the agency had demanded a monthly wage of NT$36,000 (US$1,282.96) to NT$42,000 for each of its migrant workers from the construction companies, it eventually offered only the minimum wage of NT$23,800 each to the workers.
The agency then charged the migrant workers several fees, resulting in them receiving less than NT$20,000 each month in pay, Wang Mei-yu added.
As many as 91 migrant workers were forced to work at construction sites, Wang Yu-Ling said.
At the same time, Diao, 42, and the others made a profit of approximately NT$25 million over a period of more than two years until the case was exposed, the report said.
Prosecutors in Taichung in January indicted Diao and the three accomplices on several charges including forging documents and human trafficking.
According to Wang Mei-yu, government agencies had been unaware of the case until the MOL received a tip-off in September 2019, which showed there were "serious systematic flaws" among the agencies in their vetting and monitoring duties.
In particular, the MOL had approved the application of all but one of the front companies and factories for a permit to bring in migrant workers, without making sure if those corporations had actually been engaged in manufacturing products, the report noted.
Following the tip-off, the MOL did not take steps to probe the case until December that year, Wang Mei-yu went on, showing that it paid little regard to the interests and rights of both the whistleblower and the migrant workers involved in the case.
Under Taiwan's law, the MOL, after receiving the corrective measure request issued by the Control Yuan, should immediately make improvements or take appropriate action. The ministry should also reply to the Control Yuan in writing about these improvements or actions. If the Control Yuan receives no reply within two months, it may seek further details from the MOL.
The report also named the Industrial Development Bureau under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Taichung City Government, and other government agencies for flaws in the case and called on them to make improvements to prevent similar cases from happening in the future.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel