‘Shelter in place’: Church seeks better lives for Taiwan’s migrant workers
"If someone needs shelter, he should be welcomed right away"
Nearly 800,000 “unskilled foreign laborers,” mostly from Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam work in Taiwan.
They get to Taiwan through a phalanx of employment brokers, who ensure their hiring — and in exchange take sizable monthly cuts from the workers’ low wages, over contract periods of three years that rarely lead to more stable employment.
Taiwan’s world-leading microchip industry is in a boom period, amid increasing global demand for artificial intelligence and high-performance computers.
That, along with the country’s aging populace and fertility rate — the world’s lowest — has prompted a frenzy for “cheap labor” in the nation’s microchip factories and to assist their sick and elderly.
With support from Taiwan’s bishops, a missionary priest has been sounding alarms in Taiwan on harsh conditions for the migrant workers, while working to help them find ways toward better lives in Taiwan.
Fr. Joyalito Tajonera, a Filipino-American Maryknoll Father for 23 years, has turned a former Taiwanese movie theater into a church in honor of the Most Sacred of Jesus, with a shelter for migrant workers in crisis. Along the way, he’s earned the respect of the country’s civil authorities and built a team of volunteers.
Tajonera talked with The Pillar about the challenges and triumphs for foreign workers in Taiwan’s job broker system.
This interview was mostly conducted in English and partly in Tagalog. It has been edited for length and clarity.
Tell us about your work with migrants in Taiwan.
I am a member of the Maryknoll missionaries. I studied theology and divinity in New York, at the Maryknoll School of Theology. I then went to the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, where Pope Leo XIV studied.
I was ordained in 2002, and I came to Taiwan in 2003 for my first assignment. Before that, I was in Taiwan in 1998 for overseas training. It is common for missionary groups to send seminarians to a mission country for training before ordination.
Now, because I am an immigrant to the U.S. — my family arrived there in 1982 — I had, right away, a heart for the migrants as I was exposed to them in New York and in San Francisco.
At the time I arrived, I always thought of the U.S. as the land of milk and honey.
But two things struck me when I arrived in New York in 1982.
First, that so many [people] were homeless. That was a moment of awakening for me: the U.S. was not really the land of milk and honey as I had thought. The second thing that struck me was that so many [migrants] worked in restaurants — especially Spanish-speaking workers — as janitors, or in similar jobs.
Prior to that, of course, I had ideas about migration.
As you know, in the Philippines, Filipinos who went abroad, especially those who went to Japan were labeled Japayuki (Filipinas who worked as entertainers). But then again, my own idea of migration came from my aunts and uncles who went to the U.S. as engineers and nurses. They went abroad because they were professionals. At the same time, I was exposed to migration to the Middle East, with so many Filipinos having gone to work there.
Arriving in Taiwan in 1998, I was surprised to find out that so many Filipinos worked in factories and as caregivers. That’s how I became exposed to the issues of migration. I realized that in Taiwan there was discrimination and double standards.
While I was still a seminarian, a community of overseas Filipino workers in Taichung who were part of El Haddai, a charismatic group, asked me if I would accompany them in simple ways like by participating in a Bible study and praying together. he
They said, “We don’t have a church in this area, we don't have a priest in this area, but you are welcome to come with us and be with us.”
They started what you would call in the old days a “house church” where people gathered together in one place and prayed together.
When I came back after my ordination, I knew what I was going to do: I would start a ministry for the migrants. Maryknoll was very supportive. I started organizing the Ugnayan (Filipino for connection or relationship) migrant ministry, first with a chapel and a prayer group.
Later, I started a small shelter in a two-bedroom house. After a few years, I was able to rent a building. The place that I call Sacred Heart Church, is actually a former movie theater. We are renting it with the help of Maryknoll. It also became a shelter for migrant workers as well as for other people in need.
In Taiwan, we do not only help Filipinos, although 99% of the people in the shelter are Filipino migrant workers. People of other nationalities also come and seek refuge in the church.
What are the most concrete examples of discrimination against migrant workers in Taiwan?
First , migrant workers in Taiwan are hired at the minimum wage. The minimum wage right now is $28,590 New Taiwan dollars per month which is $870 US, unless your employer is willing to give you an increase. And in Taiwan, after three years, your salary will not move because you are stuck with this contract.
No Taiwanese person will accept that wage.
In America, when you work for three years under one employer, in one company, you expect your salary to increase at least every year. But in Taiwan, there’s no reason for companies to raise your wages. You could be there for 10 or 12 years and still, under the law, receive as a migrant worker the minimum wage. Yet, the Labor Act of Taiwan says there should be no discrimination.
The second instance of discrimination concerns mobility. Taiwan has a job broker system. Migrant workers could be there for years but still be stuck paying monthly broker’s fees, which makes Taiwan unique.
Every month, a broker’s fee is deducted from a migrant’s salary. When you go to Europe or to the Middle East, you could go to a labor agency, and pay once for placement and that’s pretty much the end of it.
But in Taiwan, whether you are there in your first or 10th year, you still pay the broker a fee. You are tied to this system because the broker also regulates your housing. Everything is regulated through the broker system. I find it discriminatory so I am very vocal in advocating for its elimination. It’s not for the good of the migrants who are categorized as foreign contractual workers in Taiwan.
The third thing that I find discriminatory is that after, for instance, 14 years of working in a factory, you have to leave Taiwan unless you get hired as a mid-level worker. All foreign contract workers in Taiwan belong to one category: “low skilled workers.” The government changed the law two years ago. If the employer is willing to hire you as a mid-level worker, then you can stay in Taiwan without limits.
If you arrive at 24, 12 years later, you’ll be 36 years old. It would be difficult to get another job because you would be older. If you arrive at 32 and work, after 12 years, you will be 44 years old. In a market with so many young foreign workers looking for work, it would be very difficult for you to go home to the Philippines or go somewhere else to find another job.
Those are just three types of discrimination that I find in the system that can be reformed if the government is willing.
But the government’s mindset is, “We only need you temporarily.” But that’s not the reality.
In any first-world Asian country,— Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore — migrants are forever.
You do not have workers to do the work. And the locals, of course, will not take the jobs that the migrants will take, including those in the electronics or machine factories where the majority of Filipinos work. The Taiwanese will need more, not fewer migrants in this line of work.
And of course, they need more caregivers now.
When I arrived in Taiwan, there were around 200,000 migrant workers. After 25 years or 26 years, the migrant worker population is now close to 800,000. The need for migrant workers is not lesser, but has rather tripled or quadrupled.
How does your shelter work? Do you have staff or volunteers? How do people know about and what can they expect from you?
We do not do much publicity but the locals know us. The government authorities know us, the local nongovernment organizations know us, the Catholic Church and the other Protestant churches know that we exist. The number one source of information for workers that they can come and ask for our help is by word of mouth. The migrants themselves recommend us to fellow migrants.
I’m surprised when I ask them, “How did you know about us? How did you hear of us?”
They say: From a friend, a Facebook contact, a TikTok video, my homily. So most of our referrals come from the migrants themselves. But not limited to them of course.
In the Philippines, we have the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration and the Migrant Workers Office in the Manila Economic and Cultural Office, but the Philippines does not have diplomatic relations with Taiwan. So [the Philippines] government knows that we exist. They refer cases to us. And if I need help, I also refer cases to them.
I do not have a professional staff. I rely on volunteers and on migrants helping one another.
In the shelter, we operate on a very basic level. Everybody helps in cleaning, in cooking, in managing. I believe this empowers the migrants as they have to take responsibility. The people in the shelter themselves help one another. Those who arrive today are helped by those who arrived last month. They accompany each other to the immigration authorities, labor office, and hospitals if needed. They accompany them to job interviews. They become references for one another.
My weekly Sunday homily is a big source of guidance and information because every week , I explain what’s going on including issues about migrants.
Social media is a big help. I personally have a Facebook account. I don’t use TikTok or Instagram but the young migrant workers use that.
We are the only open shelter in Taiwan. What I mean by open shelter is that we do not receive government assistance. From the very beginning I did not, and I don’t want to accept money from the government, so that people in need can just walk in 24 hours a day, seven days a week without the need to secure the approval of authorities.
To me, if someone needs shelter, he should be welcomed right away, not because he satisfies some conditions to be accepted. Thanks be to God, we can operate that way. The Taiwanese government doesn’t bother me. I have never had a problem with the government, although I do not interact with them.
Even if the government could say, “Oh, we have to wait to get your approval,” I would say, “No, we don’t need to get your approval because the person needs help now. We are going to help the person now.”
It is like what Pope Francis said [about the Church as a field hospital]. Ugnayan, our walk-in migrant center and shelter in Taichung, is like an ambulance.
How many people live in the shelter?
The number is usually between 25 and 30 migrant workers, both men and women. Sometimes, we go over 40. Our average is 25 because people always arrive and leave.
Our church is located near the factories. The workers just walk down two or three blocks to reach us. There are dormitories around us. We are very accessible. We are one block from the train station and one block from the bus stop. It’s very easy for the migrants to come and see us.
Given the hardships migrant workers face, do you have any counsel for them and governments?
My number one advice for migrant workers — this is true not only for Taiwan but everywhere — is first, they must be aware. They must do their best to know what their rights are; both their rights as foreign workers, and the rights and laws of the country where they are going. To me, it’s a two-way street. You can protect yourself better if you know what your rights and what your obligations are. I also think that if you go to a foreign country, you must also learn to respect the culture and the local law and tradition. We are foreigners in the land and so we must learn to be polite and courteous and follow the law.
It is not a good idea to migrate to a country and think that you own it. People need to have this two-way awareness. Get to know your rights and your obligations. But you must also know the rights and obligations of the country you’re going to so that you learn how to respect its way.
For Taiwan, the Taiwanese government must let go of the broker system, to give the employer the responsibility of taking care of their employees because the broker system is for the middle man. The employer passes the responsibility to the broker, and the worker goes to the broker instead of the employer. This is costly and it’s not good for foreign workers to live life this way.
We have a new pope, Leo, who draws his name from Pope Leo XIII, who wrote the groundbreaking social encyclical Rerum Novarum. Do you find this inspiring? Why?
It’s a good thing you asked me that question. The moment I heard from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica that his name is Leo, the first thing that came out of my mouth was “That’s Rerum novarum! The rights of the workers.”
And of course I had to explain to the Filipinos what the encyclical was all about.
Pope Francis made the issues of migration and refugees a very high priority. I think that Pope Leo, coming from a family of migrants and immigrants to the US and having worked in Peru will also pay very close attention to the issues of migration.
He mentioned in one of his first talks that he is very concerned with AI. AI, of course, will affect people in terms of their right to work. People will depend more on computers and the phones next to them. There will be less work for people and I think that will be a problem. I think and hope that Pope Leo XIV will pay attention, very closely, to the rights of migrants and workers.
It looks to me like it's been the best option for a suitable place of worship and shelter given the goal of pastoring in the middle of factories and workers' dorms, for a quarter century. It would be great if a church will be built on an equally accessible site. Meanwhile the babe who arrived on a manger and died outside the city walls comes to the former theater.
This sounds a lot like what motivated Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement. May she intercede for Fr. Joyalito and his ministry!