[quote=“TainanCowboy”]I would make the distinction between professional “Headhunters”, who I do believe might be a useful asset in some fields, and the detrius known as ‘agents’ here on Taiwan.
I believe that a person is entitled to all their wages for their labors. This currently legal (although in very gray standards) process is nothing more than indentured servitude and in a lot of cases slavery, plain and simple.
The system as I have seen it, up close and personal, here on Taiwan is disgusting. And IMO are in violation of most of the so-called “Human Rights” issues so widely voiced by a lot of people.[/quote]
TC, I am not trying to get under your skin, but I would like to take this discussion further. I am genuinely curious if there any alternatives to the broker system that you are upset with.
I actually hadn’t thought about executive search consultants when I read what you wrote about ‘agents’. By ‘brokers’, particularly in the Filipino migrant worker context, I was specifically thinking about companies that recruit and place blue collar labour (like the Thai workers in the current THRC issue) and care-givers, household help and personal family nurses.
I have read elsewhere that they are a ‘necessary evil’ - fine. But let’s focus on the first part, “necessary”. How are high school and college graduates in the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, and other countries, supposed to find jobs outside of their countries?
Unlike me, most cannot hop on a plane and enter Taiwan or the EU on a tourist visa, then see for themselves the work possibilities on their own. Neither is there a forumosa-like website for workers to facilitate their own job search. And if there are such websites, I would be interested to know of such resources because I have friends who could use them.
But here are middlemen - the agents and brokers - who earn their keep making these matches happen. One could argue that these are not good matches in the first place (and I would argue strongly otherwise).
Are all of these merely filthy leeches taking advantage of our innocent proletarian comrades? Surely not all. Are many of them? Possibly, maybe even the majority of them.
But my point is that by dismissing them as you have seems to imply what is better is to remove them from the equation. OK, but now what would replace them - direct hiring practices? Open-borders?
I also believe that one is entitled to all their earnings. What’s tricky here is understanding who determines how much is enough. In the case of some Filipino migrants, what you might consider are slave labor wages here are in fact 3 or 4 times what they would earn for similar work in Manila. Now, imagine the earning disparity to the provinces of the Philippines.
This reminds me of the argument of many anti-globalization activists in North America (you wouldn’t happen to be a tree-hugger, would you?), who complain about the exploitation of workers in the 3rd world - like Nike factories in Southeast Asia. The flip side - pardon the pun - is that there workers who are happily earning more than they would under normal conditions, but at wage levels that are still below what the activist would consider ‘normal’. And these same workers would be rather unhappy that Nike must restrict its activities and operations as a result of the activists’s efforts.
Here’s an added twist. Even if the Philippines and Taiwan threw open their borders to one another (say they built a bridge connecting their 2 main islands), I bet there would still be a role and use for the dastardly middlemen you speak of.
