> Hello from Taiwan,
> I an Aristotle the acting chairman of the Secret
> Society of English Teachers in Taiwan.
If a union is secret, how can it help it's members in disputes?
What exactly is your union going to accomplish for its members if it
is "secret"?
> The reason I am asking is that here in Taiwan Foreign
> teacher are prohibited from doing so and we have had
> several of our members arrested and deported.
Are these peopple being deported because they are working in a
secret union or because of other reasons? Certainly there have been
unfair deportations in the past but that doesn't mean all of them
are unfair.
My impression from your website is that many of the folks you are
advocating for are working "illegally" in the first place (you might
be wary of offering "legal advice" on your site while
advocating "illegal" practices among members such as avoiding ARC or
legal status and making VISA runs for those who are not working in
Taiwan legally). If you advise your members to specifically break
the law in finding employment here, then the chances of ever gaining
legitimacy as an organization are slim to none. Folks who are
working here without an ARC don't have any grounds for forming a
legal trade union since they are themselves already working
illegally. This would be true in most other nations as well. A
stronger strategy is to encourage folks to have ARCs and to form a
stronger advocacy strategy for those who are working legally who
seem to be abused. Advocate wider availability of work VISAs as
well as the ability to change contracts (albeit, the last part is
more difficult given the nature of the laws at this time). While it
is certainly true that the system does seem to give folks with legal
status the bum's rush, you're never going to have legitimacy without
dotting every eye and crossing every tee.
There are advocacy groups for English teachers in Taiwan. Rather
than attempting to organize an illegal union of illegal teachers,
you might consider joining something like ETA and working within
that sort of legitimate organization to strengthen language teaching
on the island while promoting legal practices among teachers and
employers as well as in-service or teacher qualification training
for your members.
If foreign teachers are not able to setup a legal union merely
because they are foreign, what is stopping you from finding
sympathetic local teachers who do have unions to sponsor a union
with foreign teacher memberships or to open foreign-member branch
chapters of existing unions or advocacy organizations?
These questions are based upon my initial impression of your
organization's agenda as I see it from your website and are
certainly in my "opinion" only . . . and you are free to disagree
with me . . . as I am sure you will.
BTW, you might take a critical look at some of the "news"
and "warning" posts you have on your site such as the one telling
potential foreign teachers not to come to Taiwan because of civil
unrest and that those who are already here should be ready for an
immediate evacuation. The deportations at the beginning of the year
were aimed at folks working "illegally" in kindergarten bushibans
and were not aimed at all foreign teachers in general as your
warning advisory implies. If you're telling folks to stay away from
Chiayi and elsewhere, you need to give more reasoned explanation
(while the death of a foreign passport holder is unfortunate, if she
was indeed murdered, as you say, by a boyfriend that doesn't really
mean that all teachers should stay away from the city). You might
also want to check your spelling and grammar on your warnings (ex.,
in reference to your warning that folks should stay away from
Tealit.Com "their has been").
TTFN.
Brian David Phillips, PhD, CH [
phillips@nccu.edu.tw]
Associate Professor, English Dept., NCCU, Taipei, Taiwan (R.O.C.)
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