The problem of excessive working hours has come to the forefront of public debate during the past few weeks. The problem exists across the entire spectrum of professions. It doesn’t matter what a person’s profession is. Whether they are a computer engineer, a doctor or a security guard: Everybody is at risk. We are all working ourselves into an early grave.
This is one area that Taiwanese and South Koreans really do excel in, finishing in the top of world rankings for the number of working hours expected of their workforces. If there is anything that repudiates the idea that increased work hours mean increased efficiency, certainly this is it. We have to stop kidding ourselves and others that we are being efficient in any meaningful way by expecting people to work so hard. Look at the quality of life that people have in Taiwan.
Our economic achievements have not brought any real improvement in the sense that we are no more free or liberated, and our lives within the community and our families have not got better. The only thing we can claim to have increased is the strength of the shackles holding us to work, the sheer weight of pressure we have increasingly allowed ourselves to be put under and the number of family and social problems that have emerged as a consequence.
Of course, there are many ways to reduce excessive work hours and increasing labor inspections to make sure that labor laws are strictly upheld would be one of the simplest way to do this. It is also one of the most muddle-headed and ill-advised, as it is unlikely to do anything to mitigate the problem.
That said, inspections do bring one tiny benefit, they highlight the facile, impractical and ineffectual nature of the regulations on work hours in the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法), which allows employers to say, without a hint of pretense or irony: “Look, this is not what we want at all, you know how tough competition is and if our staff wants to stay late of their own accord and work hard for us. What can we do?”
Everyone is talking about finding solutions to the problem of excessive work hours without looking at the issue of “capital” itself. Apparently it has yet to dawn on anyone that the real problem might well lie in a skewed idea of the nature of efficiency. How does one measure such a thing anyway? Growth rates? Profit margins? Share prices? Imports? Orders? In other words: numbers.
Wealth is relative. It has been said that all a person needs to be rich in this world is the companionship of a dog and even the fabulously wealthy can think of themselves as poor.
There are so many aspects to Taiwan’s economic development model that have yet to be seriously addressed. The environment, social issues, employment, the rights of the individual, the public good and fairness: All of these things still need to be looked at. However, while these issues all remain unresolved, work conditions continue to decline.
Witnessing all the pain it causes and the feelings of regret and remorse it gives rise to, perhaps it is time for everyone involved, including the government, to get together and formulate a better model of economic development.
Lin Chia-ho is an assistant professor at National Chengchi University’s College of Law.
TRANSLATED BY PAUL COOPER
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