| Summary: | 碩士 === 文藻外語大學 === 國際事業暨文化交流研究所 === 105 === Taiwan lags behind advanced Western countries in promoting the laws related to sheltered workshops. The term “sheltered workshop” in the People with Disabilities Rights Protection Act, which was passed in 2007 by the Legislative Yuan and acts to protect employment rights for the disabled, refers to institutions that create a supportive workplace and employ workers with disabilities in an employment related to the Labor Standards Act and relevant labor regulations. Ten years after the passage of the People with Disabilities Rights Protection Act, 135 sheltered workshops operate across Taiwan, employing more than 1900 individuals. However, in the recent five years, the development of sheltered workshops has been stagnant.
Research has found that the external environment faced by sheltered workshops is as competitive as that faced by ordinary enterprises. They both rely on income to obtain profit and sustain operation. However, their core values differ greatly. Ordinary enterprises seek to maximize profits so efficiency and effectiveness is given great importance. There are five major functional areas of business management: production, marketing, human resources, research and development, and financial management. With the proper division of labor, enterprises can achieve their goal of profit maximization. Sheltered workshops do not seek profit maximization. Their goal is to offer employment opportunities and vocational training for individuals with disabilities. Even though sheltered workshops rely on profits to operate, they cannot demand high performance from employees. Besides, as employees in sheltered workshops lack the skills requested by the competitive job market, shelter workshops often end in financial loss and have to rely on government subsidies to keep running.
The government’s sheltering employment program is intended to provide employment opportunities for the disabled and support the operation of sheltered workshops. In other words, the law protects the disabled in regard to their rights as employees. However, the fact that sheltered workshops face difficulties in operation reflects the government’s failure to fully implement its policies. It is suggested that the government take more aggressive approaches to enhance sheltered workshops’ professional competence, and review the relevant laws and regulations for sheltering employment in order to truly improve the employment and ameliorate the operation difficulties in sheltered workshops. By doing so, the sheltering employment policy can fulfill its intended purposes: helping people with disabilities, and motivating more private enterprises to participate in running sheltered workshops in order to create a win-win situation.
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