Taiwan’s technical team has accused them of locking up immigrant workers

Japan’s Canon and Innolux, Apple’s affiliated electronics group Foxconn, have been accused of blocking Taiwanese migrant workers because the Covid-19 outbreak is affecting the country’s technology industry.

The allegations highlight work practices that maintain Taiwan’s technology as a manufacturing powerhouse. The country is at the forefront of the chip industry – a position that is even more crucial as the world suffers from a semiconductor crisis.

According to internal documents and employee communications viewed by the Financial Times, companies that also include Siliconware Precision Industries (SPIL) – the world’s largest chip packaging and testing unit in the ASE – have banned migrant workers from leaving their living rooms. except to go to work.

Although Taiwan’s exports have risen behind global demand for chips, servers, laptops and other tools needed to work from home, the country is struggling for the first time in recent weeks. the onset of coronavirus infections. Taiwanese the economy grew nearly 9 percent in the first quarter.

“It has now become very common for employers to block migrant workers,” said Lennon Wong, an activist for the Serve People Association. According to a survey conducted by the Labor Rights Group, 60% of migrant workers are banned from going on free time, which is twice as much as Taiwan. the first significant community outbreak in mid-May.

In April, 713,000 migrant workers, mostly from the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia, were working in Taiwan, accounting for 8% of the country’s workforce. More than 60 percent work in factories, including those dominated by global electronic component supply chains.

“Discrimination against migrant workers in Taiwan is systemic, but the pandemic has worsened a lot,” Wong said.

Because employers are legally required to provide accommodation and food to migrant workers, they often leave these services to brokers who try to keep them as low as possible. An average of four to 12 employees share a room.

As a result of pressure from health authorities to prevent more sets of factories, employers have imposed new restrictions in the last two weeks that go beyond the rules introduced by the central government.

Canon, a Japanese optical products company, warned migrant workers at the Taichung factory to stay out of their jobs and also warned them to chat. “Except for commuting to work, don’t leave the bedroom,” Canon said in an internal blog post. He added: “Group conversation is not allowed in the bedroom [sic]”.

Canon acknowledged that the edict could be too harsh. “We cannot deny that the content and statement we used were in part excessive due to over-focus on employee and community safety. In response to questions from within and outside the company, we reviewed the content on June 18 in line with government advice,” the company told FT.

Innolux migrant workers received the following message on June 13: “Please be informed that all of you have been closed since 30 days yesterday. You are no longer allowed to leave, so stay as long as possible and follow the rules set by the innolux company. That everything for everyone’s safety! [sic]”.

Innolux said the message was sent by the broker who runs the bedroom because of “poor communication” between the brokerage and the company.

ASE and its SPIL members asked in June for migrant workers living outside the premises to return to their rooms, and then they were banned from leaving except to go to work. According to two ASE and SPIL employees, migrant workers must enter their bedroom with an electronic gateway one hour after the end of their shift. Those who arrive late are locked up and interrogated.

The ASE said it had established a policy of requiring “migrant workers to work” on a point-by-point basis. “For example, from bedroom to work and vice versa.

SPIL said measures to prevent the epidemic in its bedrooms have followed guidelines from Taiwanese health authorities. “The company respects whether migrant workers want to return to the bedroom and encourages them to get out less.”

However, instructions issued to employees on June 5 read: “To protect the health of all employees, the company has banned all employees from going outside. […] the company and the bedroom will check the time from the factory to the bedroom on a daily basis “.

After cluster infections hit several electronics factories in western Taiwan’s Miaoli County, on June 7, local government chief Hsu Yao-chang announced that migrant workers in the region were banned from leaving their factories and bedrooms. The restrictions were much tougher than the soft blockade imposed on the general population.

The move was criticized by MP Tseng Wen-hsueh Miaoli. “The reason migrant workers are at greater risk of infection is that they have to live in crowded rooms,” he said. “We don’t have to target people for their nationality, we have to address the real problem.”

No central government official has spoken out against the restrictions on foreign workers. Other local governments in areas with technology factories have not imposed restrictions like Miaoliko.

Some employers are resorting to scare tactics. “If you are infected with Covid-19, if you die, your body will be cremated in Taiwan immediately, your family will not be able to see your body and your family’s finances will be disconnected immediately,” the Taiwanese Alibaba said. labor broker, in a message sent to migrant workers. “If you do not die, you will be responsible for all isolation fees in isolation, medical treatments and other people who have been in contact with you.”