Challenges for Small and Medium Enterprises in Taiwan in the Elimination of Forced Labour

Principle Investigator：Bonny Ling (scholar-practitioner, Executive Director of Work Better Innovations, Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the University of Nottingham Taiwan Studies Programme)

The elimination of forced labour is a fundamental principle and right at work. This global commitment is held to be so fundamental to social and economic development that all members to the International Labour Organization (ILO) are bound to fully respect the ILO conventions on forced labour, even if members have not formally ratified these thematic conventions. This means that membership in the ILO, an UN specialised agency, is largely independent of the imperative to fully respect, promote and realise the global elimination of forced labour. This sets out a clear case for the government of Taiwan to work with its private sector to thoroughly identify, prevent, mitigate and account for forced labour risks in its supply chain. There are, however, significant challenges for Taiwan. SMEs make up the backbone of its domestic economy, accounting for close to 99 percent of all enterprises and employing about 80 percent of the total domestic workforce.

The predominance of SMEs in the Taiwanese economy means that workers are dispersed at various, often remote locations that can obstruct effective collective bargaining and the reporting of labour abuses. This project examines the structural challenges of countering forced labour faced by Taiwanese SMEs, as the issue intersects with the employment situation of migrant workers in manufacturing. The project further examines and argues that while general SME capacity issues, such as lack of resources, uncertainty about legal responsibilities and poor enforcement of domestic law, are also seen for Taiwanese SMEs, more efforts are needed to bridge the knowledge gap between international labour standards and domestic understanding of growing expectation worldwide for responsible supply chains. In this context, this project is focused on employer and SME dynamics but is nonetheless thematically connected to the research project led by Prof 邱羽凡、張文貞 Yu-Fan Chiu and Wen-Chen Chang, focusing on migrant workers, titled "A Critical Legal Study on the Policy of Migrant Workers and and Elimination of Forced Labor.”