The State, Labor Import/Export, and Economic Restructuring in Taiwan
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THE STATE, LABOR IMPORT/EXPORT, AND ECONOMIC RESTRUCTURING IN TAIWAN by JOHNATHAN WALKER (Under the direction of Andrew J. Herod) ABSTRACT Taiwan has welcomed laborers from Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Malaysia since 1991, and has since added Vietnam. “Imported” foreign laborers are employed in a variety of contexts from construction and domestic service to factory work, at multiple skill levels. This study employs population, political economic, globalization, and state theory in combination with survey questionnaires, interviews, and official data to decipher the movements of laborers from “exporting”states to Taiwan. Major foci include the creation of a labor import policy, the role of the state in both labor supply and demand contexts, the evolution of the policy with special consideration for economic restructuring, social constructions of workers, and forms of resistance. Findings indicate a strong role for the state through the identification of seven points of importance in which the state is involved and creates a geography of international labor migration. An additional conclusion identifies the purpose for promotion of overseas employment: the de facto development of extraterritorial income-generating space. Key Words: International labor migration, role of the state, labor policy, economic restructuring. THE STATE, LABOR IMPORT/EXPORT, AND ECONOMIC RESTRUCTURING IN TAIWAN by JOHNATHAN WALKER A.B., The University of California, Berkeley, 1986 M.A., Syracuse University, 1991 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ATHENS, GEORGIA 2003 © 2003 Johnathan Walker All Rights Reserved THE STATE, LABOR IMPORT/EXPORT, AND ECONOMIC RESTRUCTURING IN TAIWAN by JOHNATHAN WALKER Major Professor: Andrew J. Herod Committee: Kavita Pandit Clifton Pannell Chor-pang Lo James O. Wheeler Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia May 2003 DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to the family I grew up with: my late mom Irene, my dad Bill, my sister Nancy, and my brother George; the family that grew up while I completed this study: my brother-in-law Bill, my niece Sheena, and my nephews Reed and Devin. It is also dedicated to the Hsu family within which I married: my wife Nicole (Lan-Hua), my father-in-law, Yin-kuei, my mother-in-law, Hung Tao, and my brothers- in-law Yuan-yuan, and Yuan-hwa. In the time that the idea was conceived and came to life so did my son Patrick Ming “JoJo” Walker. He has been a joyous diversion from the stresses of the research. All of the adults had a hand in helping me to see this to its fruition and I hope all the offspring in the two families can draw inspiration from this as I have drawn it from them. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I want to acknowledge the following people and institutions for their support of this research. First and foremost I must thank the overseas contract workers from Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines who will never know how significant a contribution they made to this study. I would also like to thank my father William George Walker, my late mother Irene Zinn Walker, and my sister Nancy Lyn Carter for their moral support in pursuit of this Doctor of Philosophy degree. Above and beyond that I owe a great debt to my wife Hsu Lan-hua who stuck with me throughout the process by lending moral, physical, and financial support to see it through to its conclusion. In doing she has “raised the bar” on defining unconditional love. There are few dissertations that are completed without financial and institutional assistance. For both of these I must thank the Department of Geography at the University of Georgia, then-Department Head Professor George A. Brook for provision of field support, and the graduate school at the University of Georgia for their 1999 Graduate School Award. I must also thank Professor Nora Chiang of the Department of Geography at the National Taiwan University in Taipei for her arrangement of office space and computing facilities to allow me to carry out my field research while I was in Taiwan. I must thank Paporn (Bee) Thebpanya who translated the survey questionnaire from English into Thai, and Lisa Handojo Garey for her translation of the survey questionnaire from English into Indonesian which made surveying less arduous and more fruitful. v vi Throughout the process my advisor, Associate Professor Andrew J. Herod, has remained steadfastly supportive. He has managed to coddle, cajole, consternate, and critique me through to the dissertation’s end, and believe me it was no small task. His epistemological influence and meticulous editing on the manuscript created a far better result than which I could have conceived. I must thank Dr. Janet Stuhrenberg Smith, Assistant Professor of Geography at Slippery Rock State University, my friend and colleague for her creation of the maps. Lastly, I would like to thank Dr. Jonathan I. Leib, Associate Professor of Geography at Florida State University. No one could have a better friend, not in this discipline, on this Earth, or through time immemorial. As for the content of the dissertation, any mistakes or inaccuracies are a product of my own negligence. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................ iv LIST OF TABLES ...................................................... ix LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................... xi CHAPTERS 1 INTRODUCTION ...............................................1 2 ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY AND THE INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION OF LABOR FROM SOUTHEAST ASIAN STATES TO TAIWAN ......19 3 LABOR IMPORTATION TO TAIWAN: THE ILLEGAL PERIOD, 1985-1990 ....................................................65 4 THE LEGAL INTERNATIONAL LABOR MIGRATION TO TAIWAN, 1990-1995 ...................................................111 5 REGULATION OF FOREIGN WORKERS, THE ROLE OF THE STATE, AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN TAIWAN, 1995-2000 ........163 6 NGOs, FORMS OF RESISTANCE, AND SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONS OF OVERSEAS LABOR ..........................................226 7 OFFICIAL DATA, FIELD SURVEY DATA, AND INTERNATIONAL LABOR MIGRATION .........................................269 vii viii 8 THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE STATE IN LABOR IMPORT AND ECONOMIC RESTRUCTURING, THE STATE AND LABOR EXPORT, AND THE ROLE OF THE STATE IN GLOBALIZATION ............................................304 9 CONCLUSIONS: CONTRIBUTIONS, STUDY LIMITATIONS, AND CONSIDERATIONS FOR FUTURE STUDY ......................339 BIBLIOGRAPHY .....................................................348 APPENDICES ........................................................387 A OVERSEAS CONTRACT WORKER SURVEY ....................388 B LIST OF 68 INDUSTRIES APPROVED TO HIRE FOREIGN WORKERS .................................................390 LIST OF TABLES Table 7-1 Survey Respondents by Nationality ............................279 Table 7-2 Survey Respondents by Age .................................279 Table 7-3 Survey Respondents by Nationality and Age .....................279 Table 7-4 Gender and Nationality of Foreign Workers Surveyed .............280 Table 7-5 Gender and Nationality of All Foreign Workers in Taiwan (as of 5/31/00) ........................................................280 Table 7-6 Highest Education Level Completed by Nationality ...............280 Table 7-7 Response from all nationalities to the question: Where did you sign up first? ....................................................283 Table 7-8 Response by nationality to the question: Where did you sign up first? . 283 Table 7-9 Response from all nationalities to the question: With whom did you sign up first? .............................................284 Table 7-10 Response from all nationalities to the question: How did you hear of this specific job contract? ...................................285 Table 7-11 Response from all nationalities to the question: How does your Taiwan employment compare to other international contracts? ............286 Table 7-12 Response from all nationalities to the question: What was your Profession in Home Country? ................................287 Table 7-13 Response from all nationalities to the question: Were you trained by the government to do this job? ................................288 Table 7-14 Response from all nationalities to the question: How long were you trained? .................................................288 Table 7-15 Response by nationality to the question: How long were you trained? . 289 Table 7-16 Response from all nationalities to the statement: I came overseas to work because... I read a government pamphlet ...................290 Table 7-17 Response from all nationalities to the statement: I came overseas to work because... my government offered me training/guarantees .....291 Table 7-18 Response from all nationalities to the statement: I came overseas to work because... I read about Taiwan jobs in the newspaper .........291 Table 7-19 Response from all nationalities to the statement: I came overseas to work because... I saw Taiwan had jobs on T.V. ...................292 Table 7-20 Response from all nationalities to the statement: I came overseas to work because... I'll make lots of money .........................293 Table 7-21 Response from all nationalities to the statement: I came overseas to work because... other people in my town got rich first .............294 ix Table 7-22 Response from