About 100 contract employees at the Bureau of National Health Insurance took to the streets yesterday to demand job security and better protection of workers' rights.
The leader of the 500 protesters, who work as assistants in the bureau's offices across the country, Yang Pi-kan (楊碧甘), said that in spite of the contract workers' hard work over the past 10 years, the bureau has been trying to lay them off for the past six years.
According to the union, in 2000 and last year, the bureau planned to cut the number of contract personnel, but the assistants successfully negotiated their continued employment.
PHOTO: CNA
However, the bureau announced new work regulations governing assistants in May, it said.
A new year-end evaluation system was introduced, and any contract worker who failed to pass the evaluation for two consecutive years would be fired based on the new regulations, the union said.
The union said that the evaluation system was a means for reducing the number of employees, as only 75 percent of the assistants at most could obtain top ratings each year.
A union member surnamed Tsai told the media that they were willing to accept a change in regulations as long as their rights as workers could be guaranteed.
However, unlike government officials who are evaluated by a committee at the end of the year, the assistants' performance will only be reviewed by their supervisors, she said, adding that the assistants have had to contend with job insecurity over the past 10 years.
Most of the assistants are in their forties and are therefore scared of losing their job, Tsai added.
In response, the bureau's personnel director Yu Chin-chun (
They have been granted paid leave of absence for personal reasons and illness after the new regulations were issued, Yu said.
Yu added that a team of six supervisors would review their work performance after their superintendents had made the first evaluation.
The bureau will try its best to communicate with the assistants, but it is impossible to guarantee permanent employment, she added.
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