A six-day strike by employees of a local financial provider was launched yesterday, hot on the heels of the four-day work stoppage by Taiwan Business Bank (
But, unlike the first strike, the labor action by Nan Shan Life Insurance (
Hundreds of slogan-chanting employees of Nan Shan, affiliated with US insurance giant American International Group, yesterday demonstrated outside the company's headquarters in Taipei on the first day of their planned six-day strike, witnesses said.
The insurer's management allegedly forced workers to sign new employment contracts which did not include a provision that the company would pay insurance and health-cover fees for the workers, as required by law, a Nan Shan labor union official said, and neither would it pay pension fund contributions.
Companies in Taiwan are now required by law to set aside 6 percent of an employee's salary for a pension fund, after a new labor pension system came into effect on July 1.
"The new contracts are not fair because we would be required to work as full-time staff while being treated as temporary workers," union spokesman Tsai Wen-hsin said.
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