When a female temporary worker complained of being the victim of sexual harassment, the Council of Labor Affairs said that no employer-employee relationship existed between the employer at the temporary work place and the temporary employee, and that the sole responsibility for the incident therefore lay with the temporary work agency.
This is tantamount to a government announcement that as long as employers use temporary workers, they are free to engage in sexual harassment, sexual discrimination and sexual bullying in the workplace, while temporary workers are treated like lambs for the slaughter.
On Women’s Day last year, the Awakening Foundation held a press conference condemning the council for its interpretation of the law and its decision to overturn a verdict that made both the temp agency and the temporary workplace the employers of temp workers.
The council promised to improve the situation and the Cabinet said agencies should be regulated based on the Act of Gender Equality in Employment (性別工作平等法), enforced by the Bureau of Labor Affairs at the local government level, while the temporary workplace should be regulated by the Sexual Harassment Prevention Law (性騷擾防治法), which is enforced by the Bureau of Social Affairs at the local government level.
This establishes a two-track system in which the responsibility is shared between the labor affairs and social affairs bureaus.
Two acts and two authorities would seem to offer double the protection, but it is only the government playing with words in an attempt to shirk responsibility — it actually puts temporary workers in a worse position.
When the council said that the unit hiring a temporary worker from a temp agency is not that worker’s employer, it in effect voids the Act of Gender Equality in Employment and its guarantees for temporary workers.
For most temporary workers, the temp agency merely functions as an intermediary. It is neither the place of work, nor the unit managing the worker’s time off and other details. Furthermore, the temp agency and the temporary workplace have shared interests: The temp agency provides manpower to the temporary workplace and charges a commission for doing so. It does its utmost to satisfy the temporary workplace’s needs. After all, how likely is it that a temp agency, when faced with a case of sexual harassment in the workplace, would interfere with the management of the temporary workplace by demanding that it improve its work environment?
From now on, when temporary workers encounter sexual harassment, the workplace will only have to claim it is not the employer, that the relevant information is posted at the workplace under its jurisdiction and that the matter is the result of the individual perpetrator’s actions or that it should be dealt with by the two parties involved on their own.
Ninety percent of all victims of sexual harassment in the workplace are women and the perpetrators are superiors, co-workers or maybe even an environment or system rife with sexual prejudice.
In addition to protecting the interests of those affected by sexual harassment, it is important to improve the work environment to prevent such incidents.
A Control Yuan report shows that the government is the biggest employer of temp workers in the nation, with one-ninth of the country’s temporary workers. This raises the question of whether the two-track system is meant to protect the interests of temporary workers or to sacrifice these workers and gender equality in the workplace to benefit the government and corporations.
Lin Shiou-yi is director of the development division at the Awakening Foundation.
Translated by Perry Svensson
Recently, China launched another diplomatic offensive against Taiwan, improperly linking its “one China principle” with UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 to constrain Taiwan’s diplomatic space. After Taiwan’s presidential election on Jan. 13, China persuaded Nauru to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Nauru cited Resolution 2758 in its declaration of the diplomatic break. Subsequently, during the WHO Executive Board meeting that month, Beijing rallied countries including Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Belarus, Egypt, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Laos, Russia, Syria and Pakistan to reiterate the “one China principle” in their statements, and assert that “Resolution 2758 has settled the status of Taiwan” to hinder Taiwan’s
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s (李顯龍) decision to step down after 19 years and hand power to his deputy, Lawrence Wong (黃循財), on May 15 was expected — though, perhaps, not so soon. Most political analysts had been eyeing an end-of-year handover, to ensure more time for Wong to study and shadow the role, ahead of general elections that must be called by November next year. Wong — who is currently both deputy prime minister and minister of finance — would need a combination of fresh ideas, wisdom and experience as he writes the nation’s next chapter. The world that
Can US dialogue and cooperation with the communist dictatorship in Beijing help avert a Taiwan Strait crisis? Or is US President Joe Biden playing into Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) hands? With America preoccupied with the wars in Europe and the Middle East, Biden is seeking better relations with Xi’s regime. The goal is to responsibly manage US-China competition and prevent unintended conflict, thereby hoping to create greater space for the two countries to work together in areas where their interests align. The existing wars have already stretched US military resources thin, and the last thing Biden wants is yet another war.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, people have been asking if Taiwan is the next Ukraine. At a G7 meeting of national leaders in January, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida warned that Taiwan “could be the next Ukraine” if Chinese aggression is not checked. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said that if Russia is not defeated, then “today, it’s Ukraine, tomorrow it can be Taiwan.” China does not like this rhetoric. Its diplomats ask people to stop saying “Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow.” However, the rhetoric and stated ambition of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Taiwan shows strong parallels with