The Ministry of Labor yesterday announced that the minimum hourly and monthly wages would be raised to NT$150 and NT$23,100, marking an increase of 5 percent and 7.14 percent respectively, after concluding a record-long deliberation with representatives of workers’ groups, companies and academics.
The new wages are to take effect on Jan. 1, the ministry said.
“The results are unacceptable,” said Taiwan Confederation of Trade Unions president Chuang Chueh-an (莊爵安), who represented workers at the meeting. “The ministry evidently favored employers [in its decision].”
Photo: Huang Yao-cheng, Taipei Times
Workers’ groups had called for the minimum monthly wage to be increased from NT$22,000 to NT$28,862 and for the minimum hourly rate to be raised from NT$140 to NT$182.
Chinese National Federation of Industries standing director Sam Ho (何語), who represented employers at the meeting, said that companies’ overhead is estimated to increase by NT$39 billion per year as a result of the salary adjustments.
That could be the last straw, causing many small and medium-sized companies to fold, which would affect youth employment, he said.
Companies are not optimistic about the state of the economy in the latter half of this year due to the increased wages, he added.
With the global economy shaken by an intensifying US-China trade war and the depreciation of the Turkish lira, Taiwanese industries might be hit hard, he said.
While companies are not happy with the results, they will have to comply with the ministry’s final decision, Ho said.
Employers should take care of their employees, but whether employers could manage a sustainable business model should also be factored into the equation, especially in Taiwan, where small and medium-sized enterprises comprise 98 percent of the industrial sector, he added.
The service sector could be hit especially hard, as higher basic wages would in turn drive up prices, as businesses try to compensate for additional expenses, he said.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
RSS