Hannes Zetzsche (centre) at the Hope Worker's Center, Taiwan in 2017. Photo: Hannes Zetzsche
When I boarded Cathay Pacific in 2017, I thought my touchdown in Taipei would mark the beginning of five months of complete sacrifice. As a short-term volunteer with the Hope Workers’ Centre, I planned to devote myself fully for a time to helping people. Over the past months, however, the stories of a hundred migrant workers have taught me to value sacrifice in a greater way.
The Hope Workers’ Centre, in Zhongli, Taiwan was founded in 1986 by Columban priests. It exists today to support the migrant workers in Taiwan - more than half-a-million migrants worked in Taiwan in 2016. I lived in the Centre’s shelter with people from Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, sheltered because they are either victims of workplace abuse or human trafficking.
For five days a week I worked alongside a staff of caseworkers in the Centre, helping migrants to learn and access their rights as workers.
In speaking with workers during my first weeks at the Centre, I was awestruck by the true sacrifice many of these men and women had faced and continue to endure. They’ve told me about how much they miss their spouses, children and siblings as they work away from home for up to 12 years. Many of the workers send almost their entire pay-cheques home to their loved ones every month.
In response to these compelling accounts, one of my first tasks at the Hope Workers’ Centre was to document their stories for a documentary called 'The Migrant Worker’s Face'.
This is one woman’s story that I edited:
“Let me set the scene: 50 Filipina workers and I had been working 12 hours per day, seven days a week- even without holidays like Christmas and New Year and we had been paid regular wages only, with no overtime. Many of my co-workers suffered injuries from the machines they operated, and had to pay their own medical expenses and received no income during their period of medical leave.
My co-workers and I didn’t know our rights.
The situation reached a breaking point when one of my friends at work was injured on the job and recognized that the company was treating her unfairly by not providing health coverage during her leave. It was then that a friend’s sister told us to go to the Hope Workers’ Center.
After a 12 hour shift at work from 7.00 pm to 7.00 am we went to the Hope Workers’ Center and met with a caseworker, Santos Lim. He interviewed us and we discussed what could be done. Mr Lim encouraged us to file a case against Tachen Textile Company, suggesting that we could do so confidentially so that the company wouldn’t find out and retaliate. We encouraged other co-workers to join our fight against the labour conditions but fearful of retaliation by our employers, they demurred.
The company threatened us that unless we withdrew our cases against them, they would terminate our contracts and send us home to the Philippines. Only two of us opted to fight for our rights and Mr Lim stood by us.
Fighting the company for our rights was not easy as they watched us closely, waiting for a mistake that would justify termination of our contracts.
Conditions at work had worsened to such a point that we ran away from work one morning and went directly to the Hope Workers’ Center which took us in. We stayed in the shelter for almost a month, free of charge.
I remember meeting Fr James, an Irish priest who encouraged us not to give up our case and to persevere. Our caseworker, Mr Lim, never gave up either, and we met with him every Sunday.
One day while we were staying at the Hope Workers’ Center, the police came and tried to arrest us to send us back to the Philippines. Mr Lim came to our defence and told the police that they didn’t have the right to arrest us, because their jurisdiction extended only to New Taipei County and not to Taoyuan. The police relented for the time being, and we were scheduled a court appearance in Taoyuan, with Mr Lim supporting us.
It was there for the first time that we faced our previous broker and employer since having run away. They were seeking our deportation.
We are grateful to God for the support we received in court that day. Mr Lim, Fr James and the director of the Hope Workers’ Center at the time, Fr Peter O’Neill, a Columban priest, each came to court in support of us and won the case on our behalf. Thanks to the help from them, we were able to answer the questions in the briefings.
We won the right to stay and work in Taiwan, and the right to recover our lost wages at Tachen Textile Company. The result of the case even helped the other workers at the factory to regain their lost wages as well, and many of them filed cases that allowed them to receive proper amounts for holiday and overtime hours that they should have received over their working histories.
We are all thankful to the Hope Workers’ Center for their help, especially people like Fr O’Neill for his help to the migrants in Taiwan. Thank you for an unforgettable experience.
May God bless you all and, once again, thank you Hope Workers’ Center.”
Through this project, we hope to appreciate the unique beauty of migrant workers’ lives and foster recognition among a wider audience the profound struggles migrants often encounter.
You can read more stories at: www.hopeworkerscenter.org/migrantworkersface
What was my ultimate sacrifice here in Taiwan working alongside the Columbans? Nominal to non-existent. But with each account of The Migrant Worker’s Face, I’ve felt myself forming a deeper understanding of what it means to sacrifice oneself for another, the ultimate message of Easter.
Listen to A migrant lesson on sacrifice
Hannes Zetzsche was a Columban volunteer for the international program in Taiwan in 2017.
Related links
- Read more from The Far East, September 2018
