The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday said that it would take a wait-and-see approach after a survey found that 76 percent of listed companies disapproved of a proposal by 62 lawmakers to amend the Securities and Exchange Act (證券交易法) to force local corporations to designate a labor director.
Five groups of lawmakers — led by KMT legislators Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順), Lee Yen-hsiu (李彥秀) and Chiang Nai-hsin (蔣乃辛), DPP Legislator Liu Chien-kuo (劉建國) and New Power Party Legislator Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) — have proposed forcing companies to establish the position of labor director, who would be selected by labor unions or employees.
Boards of directors are elected by shareholders, who have the right to elect directors as they own the company and take the risks, while labor directors could be objective and independent, Securities and Futures Bureau Deputy Director Sam Chang (張振山) said.
Of the 1,513 respondents to the survey of the nation’s listed companies, which was conducted by the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) and the Taipei Exchange in June 2015, only 18 percent approved establishing the labor director position and 6 percent had “no opinion,” Chang told a news conference in New Taipei City yesterday.
The TWSE routinely conducts surveys, to which only corporate representatives can reply, Chang said.
Chang cited companies that disapproved of setting up the position as saying in the survey that it was not necessary to have a labor director, as they had already been forced to establish an audit committee and independent directors that would pay attention to labor issues, in addition to the need to reach agreements with labor unions.
Some firms also cited concerns that labor directors would not perform better than other directors, Chang said, adding that others responded that they did not need more directors, as they are small companies.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day