Economic Globalization and the Segregation of Workers: The Labor and Social Welfare Policy Reform in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Ching—hui Chiu, 邱靖惠
• Other Authors: Jen-der Lue, Ph. D.
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2003
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/49888217664298700713

碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 社會福利系 === 91 === It has been widely argued that the fierce global competition has negative impacts on the workers by the increasing global economic integration. Globalization could result in unemployment, the widening of income inequality and the weakling of trade unions. Possessing different technical assets and locating in different market position, the international division of labor has impacts on the workers and trade unions. This constellation results in diverging policy preferences toward labor and social policy among workers, particularly between workers in exposed and sheltered sectors. Facing the challenge of globalization, the state is compelled to push reform to enhance its competitiveness in the global market. Against the background of labor and social policy reform debated and initiated recently in Taiwan, this thesis aims to explore the following two questions: Firstly, the policy preferences of trade unions toward the above two policies and secondly, the social security of atypical employees without labor protection. Following the exposed/sheltered sector model developed by Scharpf and Schwartz, this thesis tries to explore to what extend this model of worker division could be suitable to Taiwan’s case. Based on secondary data analysis and in-depth interview qualitative method, this thesis finds that there does exist policy preference divergences among trade unions in exposed and sheltered sector. However, this model should be modified to explain this divergent interest constellation among workers. Aside from exposed/sheltered scheme, the public/private difference should also be taken into account. Based on the modified model the main findings of this research are briefly summarized as follows: 1)Workers in exposed and public sector: active industrial policy leaded by the state to intervene in the product market to enhance the domestic corporation competitiveness; 2)Workers in sheltered and public sector: active labor protection and social security; 3)Workers in exposed and private sector: minimum labor protection standard and occupational welfare; 4)Workers in sheltered and private sector: universal welfare services programs financed by the government. This thesis also finds that although workers in the four cells are heterogeneous in terms of the skills standard, global market pressures they confront, and density of unions, their policy preferences are homogeneous in terms of the social protection they pursue. The workers in exposed/public, sheltered/public, and exposed/private sector all tend to the traditional income maintenance scheme; their policy preference can be formulated as‘responsive state’model. However, workers in sheltered/private sector are, in general, the part-time workers excluded by the labor protection. They prefer to the universal welfare service scheme financed by the government. The author concludes that the divergent interest constellation among workers should be taken into consideration by the policy elites when pushing labor and social policy reform in a globalizing era.