From Labor Shortage to Coexistence: Migrant Workers Sustain the Water Spinach on Our Tables, Labor Groups Urge Priority on Improving Working Conditions

Water spinach, one of the 'Three Treasures' of Meinong District in Kaohsiung, generates hundreds of millions of dollars annually as a 'green gold' crop packaged in bundles. In recent years, the systematic introduction of legal migrant workers has gradually reduced illegal labor and alleviated labor shortages, transforming rural culture and industrial structures. The once-simple Hakka village now features diverse languages, cuisines, and lifestyles. This special report explores the lives of foreign laborers, observes rural transformation, and examines the sustainability of the industry, focusing on how labor shortages have reshaped a rural community and documenting its journey.

(Central News Agency reporters Chang Yi-Lien and Hung Hsueh-Kuang, Kaohsiung, June 14) A crisp, refreshing plate of water spinach on a restaurant table is supported behind the scenes by migrant workers from abroad. Meinong, Taiwan’s largest water spinach production area, uses outreach farming systems and individual applications to mitigate labor shortages. However, labor groups argue that the government should disclose the effectiveness of these systems for public scrutiny and prioritize improving agricultural working conditions and industrial structures, avoiding the treatment of migrant workers as mere tools to fill low-wage labor gaps.

As migrant workers become an essential labor source in rural areas, the government has introduced measures to protect their rights. Yet, labor organizations hold differing views on whether the outreach farming system truly balances labor demand with worker protection.

The Taiwan International Workers Association opposed the outreach system for agricultural and manufacturing migrant workers in 2019, arguing that it effectively resembles a labor dispatch model. Under this system, migrant workers are hired by farmers' associations, cooperatives, or nonprofit organizations and then dispatched to different farms. This increases risks related to job adaptation and occupational hazards and may lead to unclear accountability for labor rights.

The association believes the government should not rely solely on introducing migrant workers to solve agricultural labor shortages but should first improve working conditions and industrial structures in agriculture, avoiding the use of migrant workers as human tools to fill low-wage labor gaps.

Wu Jing-Ru, a researcher at the Taiwan International Workers Association, stated that the government has not published any reports on the system’s effectiveness or feedback from employers and workers since the outreach system was implemented. Therefore, the association demands greater transparency and information disclosure from the government.

Wu Jing-Ru emphasized, 'Whether people support the system or believe it needs improvement, the reality should be honestly presented. But currently, even basic information about the system’s operation is unavailable, depriving the public of its right to oversight.'

Under pressure from labor shortages, migrant workers have become indispensable in rural areas. Their presence is visible in fields during harvesting and in farm management. Protecting their rights to work and housing has become one of the key challenges for local governments.

According to statistics from the Kaohsiung City Labor Bureau, the city hosts nearly 80,000 migrant workers. As of April this year, 176 migrant workers were engaged in outreach farming.

The Kaohsiung Labor Bureau reported that among these 176 workers, 157 are from Vietnam, 11 from Indonesia, 6 from Thailand, and 2 from the Philippines. As of June this year, the Meinong District Farmers' Association employed 68 outreach farming workers, with 50 of them involved in water spinach harvesting.

To address the various work and life adaptation challenges migrant workers may face in Taiwan, the Kaohsiung Labor Bureau implements measures such as 'dormitory inspections,' 'legal consultation services,' 'management of employment agencies,' and 'organizing recreational activities and training programs' to ensure migrant workers’ rights. Violators are penalized according to relevant regulations.

'Kaohsiung’s dormitory management is famous across Taiwan. It’s fundamentally about fire safety and public security. If something goes wrong, we might never forgive ourselves,' said Yang Pei-Hua, Section Chief of Employment Safety at the Kaohsiung City Labor Bureau. Kaohsiung adopts inter-agency joint management of dormitory safety, inspecting fire safety equipment reports and building public safety declarations for migrant worker dormitories. Cross-agency joint inspections are conducted when necessary.

Yang Pei-Hua explained that to protect migrant workers’ housing rights, dormitories are managed through a tiered control system. Migrant worker accommodations are classified based on type, serving as a risk management basis. Inspection frequencies vary by classification to ensure employers provide proper living care services as required.

'The Labor Bureau is the back-end management authority,' Yang Pei-Hua noted. When relevant units apply for outreach farming workers, private employment agencies assist with administrative procedures. Therefore, the Labor Bureau regularly conducts special inspection programs for private employment service agencies to verify whether agencies properly maintain employment service records and whether fee details and migrant workers’ entry-related costs comply with current regulations.

Regarding legal consultations, Yang Pei-Hua stated that consultation staff are assigned to handle cases through the nationwide 24-hour hotline '1955 Labor Consultation and Complaints Hotline,' providing bilingual (Chinese, Thai, Indonesian, Vietnamese, English) consultation, complaint filing, and labor dispute resolution services to protect the rights of legal migrant workers in Taiwan.

On the labor groups’ calls for 'disclosing outreach system effectiveness' and 'feedback from employers and workers,' Yang Pei-Hua said that such content involves actual implementation and user experiences and should be further investigated and documented by relevant agencies to clarify the system’s operational effectiveness. (Edited by Huang Ming-Hsi) 1150614