Taiwan Home Service Labor Co-op helps needy families
Hung
Chiu-yen believes that joining a co-op helps disadvantaged women
improve their finances and boost their confidence. (Staff photo/Chen
Mei-ling)
- Publication Date：04/28/2012
- Source：
Taiwan Today
- By June Tsai
The ROC government addresses poverty and unemployment with a
range of welfare programs, but for a New Taipei City-based cooperative
determined to help members help themselves, a relaxation of regulations
and measures to encourage participation would be more productive.
The Taiwan Home Service Labor Co-op has assisted thousands of
families over the last 10 years, and created jobs for more than 200
women.
Co-op members, mostly in their 40s and 50s, provide
housecleaning, cooking and care services to new mothers, families with
toddlers and older people incapable of daily activities.
“My first thought was to help economically and socially
disadvantaged women stand on their own,” Hung Chiu-yen, CEO of the labor
co-op, said in an interview March 23. As a single parent, she knows
firsthand the challenges mothers may come up against.
The idea was to help women increase their household income with
the skills they have honed as wives and mothers, expertise that is often
taken for granted, Hung said. She added that a majority of the co-op
members face issues of long-term family care or domestic violence.
Hung felt that a co-op business, jointly owned and controlled by
members, would offer opportunities for people to improve in many ways.
“I believe that being your own boss and earning money with your own
hands help with self-esteem, which underprivileged women often lack,”
she said.
When the organization was getting started, few of those involved
knew how a labor co-op works, or how to manage one. Hung invested her
own savings and got six friends together in 2003 to make up the minimum
number required by law to start a co-op.
“We didn’t have enough money or work when we began, but managed
to seek out potential members by distributing fliers at traditional
markets and knocking on the doors of those facing dilemmas in life
similar to our own. At the same time, we also discovered clients.”
According to Hung, members receive 123 hours of training
organized by the co-op, with an additional 105 for those who want to be
home caregivers, before they are sent out on a job. In addition to the
initial training courses, workshops are held twice a year with experts
from such fields as art, history, food design and even sound dubbing.
Home
service co-op members learn to paint handmade cups at a biannual
training session last year. (Photos courtesy of Taiwan Home Service
Labor Co-op)
Client recognition of their good performance has helped spread the
co-op’s reputation and bring in business. Now the co-op has more than
200 members, and the client base has also expanded so much that more
workers are needed.
“Our people are much sought after because they treat the people
they work for as their own family, and they follow disciplined working
procedures,” Hung said. About 80 percent of their business is regular
housecleaning, she added.
“Our members might not have much education, but they understand
human needs,” Hung said. “Their work combines a compassionate nature
with professionalism, which you won’t find in household services
provided by companies.”
The co-op itself is like a family, Hung said. “We share our
worries and concerns, and the solidarity holds us up when it seems too
difficult to continue.” She once stayed with another member for 24 hours
straight, finally dissuading her from committing suicide. When Hung
fell sick from overwork, other members volunteered their time to help
care for her.
This attitude of caring for others as one’s own family was
demonstrated in one case when the co-op arranged the funeral for a
deceased client, whose children never showed up while the care recipient
was alive.
In another case, Lin Feng-ju, a senior member, won the trust of a
client and has ended up working eight hours a day for several years for
the same family. “The job offers me a stable income and the chance to
help others,” she said. “I feel I am very lucky.”
The co-op’s sympathetic and hardworking team is the reason Hung
insists that the venture must carry on despite unfavorable conditions.
Co-op members watch the polling results after electing managers and supervisors Feb. 18, 2012.
According to her, the collective now faces a serious shortage of
labor as only about half of the members can take commissions regularly.
Domestic work is physically demanding, and members have to deal
with occupational injuries and dwindling strength and energy after
working for a period of time. Some had to opt out of the work due to
health problems, she said.
New recruits have been difficult to come by. The co-op has sought
to collaborate with government-run employment service centers, but job
seekers there are confused by the idea of a membership fee and soon drop
out, Hung said.
“Would-be participants have to pay for the required training courses, and that also seems to put them off.”
Fortunately, the United Way of Taiwan, a coalition of charitable
organizations, has helped cover training fees for new members, Hung
said, noting that the co-op also runs training sessions partly at its
own cost as there is no requirement for minimum class size.
Although she does not expect too much, Hung said that “even just a
small educational subsidy from the government could help both the co-op
and those in need of a job go a long way.”
She also hopes regulations can be changed to exempt the co-op as a nonprofit organization from the business income tax.
Lee Kuei-chiu, associate professor in the Department of
Cooperative Economics at Taichung-based Feng Chia University, said
Taiwan’s Cooperative Act does not allow a co-op to provide services to
nonmembers, thus subjecting labor service-providing co-ops to the annual
business tax and quarterly income taxes just like a regular business.
The Ministry of the Interior proposed changing the rule, but the
bill waited in the Legislature for over three years and had to be
resubmitted. Its fate is still undetermined.
“Lawmakers may not be particularly interested in amending the law
and making co-ops more competitive as they face pressure from other
interest groups and more powerful businesses,” Lee remarked.
The co-op is now NT$3 million (US$101,500) in the red, Hung said.
Yet the thought of not letting down the members of the co-op
family keeps her going, she said. “We have all come through hardships
and know the importance of mutual help and trust. We have taken this
positive attitude to the client families we serve, and this is what I am
most proud of about our members.” (THN)
