The Ministry of Civil Service has proposed allowing public servants to take leave on an hourly basis for personal or family reasons, Minister of Civil Service Chou Hung-hsien (周弘憲) said on Sunday.
The ministry formally submitted a proposal last week to the Examination Yuan to allow public servants to structure their leave in hourly blocks, instead of the current mandatory half-day allotments, he said.
This would make workplaces more receptive to the needs of those raising children or caring for elderly family members, Chou said.
The proposal was a response to a petition submitted last year to the online Public Policy Network Participation Platform, which gathered the required 5,130 signatures to elicit a government response, he said.
The petition urged amending the regulations governing public employees’ vacation to allow for more flexible use of rest time.
By using an hour as the building block for time off, instead of a half-day, public employees would be able to pick up children from school or provide care for family, the petition said.
The Directorate-General of Personnel Administration forwarded the petition to the Ministry of Civil Service, Chou said.
Considering the intent of the regulation is to protect public employees’ right to have time off during the year, there is no compelling reason to require them to use their vacation time in half-day blocks, he said.
The ministry has discussed the plan with more than a score of relevant agencies and the responses have been positive, Chou said.
Should the Examination Yuan agree, the new system could take effect as early as May, he said.
Huang Wei-chen (黃維琛), the deputy director of the Ministry of Labor’s Department of Labor Standards and Equal Employment, said the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) authorizes using the hour as the basic block in calculating leave only if business and labor representatives have agreed via contracts to do so.
The Chinese National Federation of Industries said the proposed reform would improve the flexibility and efficiency of the public sector.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique