During a recent question-and-answer session on the legislative floor, Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) used a popular catchphrase created by Japanese writer Haruki Murakami when asked to consider increasing the number of public holidays, saying he looked at the issue positively because people would enjoy “a little happiness in hand” with more work holidays.
Jiang then told lawmakers that he already had three proposals in mind. Without delay, officials at the Ministry of the Interior and Directorate-General of Personnel Administration soon gave several reasons to support Jiang’s stance.
The government’s response was expected when New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu’s (朱立倫) criticism that the six-day Lunar New Year holiday this year was relatively short appeared to resonate with the public and prompted lawmakers to vie to make nine-day Lunar New Year holidays mandatory.
Leaving aside immediate opposition from leaders of business groups, who tend to bemoan the effects public holidays have on productivity and production, any increase in public holidays is attractive to most constituencies, which is why Jiang tried to get a step ahead of lawmakers by declaring his support for the issue with his three proposals.
This might enable the embattled premier to score some short-term political points, but it is actually of little help in improving the labor market in Taiwan, which is characterized by long working hours, low pay and informal working arrangements, each of which is a hindrance to “a little happiness in hand.”
The problem of long work hours alone no doubt deserves government attention more than the number of public holidays, especially for people who are not covered under regulations passed in 2001 mandating a five-day workweek, which apply to civil public servants, military personnel and teachers.
According to a report released by the then-Council of Labor Affairs, now the Ministry of Labor, in December last year, Taiwanese in 2012 worked an average of 2,141 hours, which was the third-highest annual average among 30 countries. The study did not include Hong Kong, which is also known for its extremely long working hours. Taiwan followed Mexico and Singapore, where people averaged 2,402 hours and 2,226 hours that year, respectively.
Taiwan’s average is much longer than the average of 72 countries — 1,915 hours per year — surveyed by UBS, a global financial service firm, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) average of 1,776 hours.
Taiwan is among the few Asian countries lacking a mandatory five-day workweek across all sectors, as set out in the “Forty-Hour Week Convention” adopted by the International Labor Organization in 1935.
The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics has found that about 90 percent of employees worked more than 40 hours a week in 2012 and about 10 percent worked more than 50 hours a week that year.
Along with the 2001 implementation of the five-day workweek in certain sectors, the then-revised Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) reduced regular work hours to 84 hours every two weeks, compared with the original 48 hours a week provision.
What does “a little happiness in hand” mean?
Murakami, a marathon runner, once suggested: “a cold beer after a hard workout.”
“If we don’t have this kind of a little happiness, life would be like a dry, arid desert,” Murakami said.
A little happiness in hand could be that simple.
In work-hour rankings, Taiwan was followed by South Korea, with an average of 2,090 annual work hours, according to the labor ministry study.
Same difference? However, it is worth noting that South Korea has the fastest-declining work hours in the OECD. Since 1991, 571 hours have been trimmed.
During the same period, there was a reduction of just 220 hours in Taiwan.
The government could expect more of itself.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long been expansionist and contemptuous of international law. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the CCP regime has become more despotic, coercive and punitive. As part of its strategy to annex Taiwan, Beijing has sought to erase the island democracy’s international identity by bribing countries to sever diplomatic ties with Taipei. One by one, China has peeled away Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic partners, leaving just 12 countries (mostly small developing states) and the Vatican recognizing Taiwan as a sovereign nation. Taiwan’s formal international space has shrunk dramatically. Yet even as Beijing has scored diplomatic successes, its overreach
In her article in Foreign Affairs, “A Perfect Storm for Taiwan in 2026?,” Yun Sun (孫韻), director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington, said that the US has grown indifferent to Taiwan, contending that, since it has long been the fear of US intervention — and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) inability to prevail against US forces — that has deterred China from using force against Taiwan, this perceived indifference from the US could lead China to conclude that a window of opportunity for a Taiwan invasion has opened this year. Most notably, she observes that
For Taiwan, the ongoing US and Israeli strikes on Iranian targets are a warning signal: When a major power stretches the boundaries of self-defense, smaller states feel the tremors first. Taiwan’s security rests on two pillars: US deterrence and the credibility of international law. The first deters coercion from China. The second legitimizes Taiwan’s place in the international community. One is material. The other is moral. Both are indispensable. Under the UN Charter, force is lawful only in response to an armed attack or with UN Security Council authorization. Even pre-emptive self-defense — long debated — requires a demonstrably imminent
Since being re-elected, US President Donald Trump has consistently taken concrete action to counter China and to safeguard the interests of the US and other democratic nations. The attacks on Iran, the earlier capture of deposed of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and efforts to remove Chinese influence from the Panama Canal all demonstrate that, as tensions with Beijing intensify, Washington has adopted a hardline stance aimed at weakening its power. Iran and Venezuela are important allies and major oil suppliers of China, and the US has effectively decapitated both. The US has continuously strengthened its military presence in the Philippines. Japanese Prime
RSS