The Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) has determined that Chunghwa Telecom violated the Labor Standards Law (勞基法) by unilaterally extending employees' working hours without first securing the approval of its labor union.
CLA Deputy Minister Kuo Fong-yu (
Although the company claimed it had informed the labor union about the decision, it was never approved by the union, he said.
The council also found that the company did not compensate its employees for working overtime, nor did it reward employees with perfect attendance records.
Chunghwa Telecom labor union representatives at the meeting also presented a booklet detailing alleged illegal labor practices by the company, with several cases in court.
One of the major cases involved a Kaohsiung court ruling which found in favor of a Chunghwa Telecom employee, who accused the company of forcing employees to accept positions at far-away locations or accept early retirement. The court ordered Chunghwa Telecom to pay NT$160,000 as compensation to the employee in March last year.
The telecom company's illegal labor practices faced harsh criticism at the legislative meeting yesterday.
"Chunghwa Telecom has posted huge annual profits, but what they did has set a bad example to the public," Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wang Yu-ting (
Another KMT legislator, Ho Tsai-feng (侯彩鳳), asked if members of the company's board representing the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) had exercised their authority and monitored the company's operations.
Chunghwa Telecom has 15 board directors, of which 11 are MOTC representatives.
In response, MOTC Deputy Minister Ho Nuan-hsuen (
Ho added that Chunghwa's management and labor representatives will hold another round of negotiations today.
The ministry will then issue a response based on the results of the negotiations, he said.
Chunghwa Telecom has conducted negotiations with the labor union twice. While the company insisted it had followed the Labor Standards Law when it adjusted the working hours, the union said the company had broken the contract between labor and management with the action.
Despite the raging controversy, Ho said it was still too early to determine whether Chunghwa chairman Hochen Tan (賀陳旦) should be replaced at the shareholders' meeting next month.
KMT Legislator Lwo Shih-hsiung (羅世雄) said Hochen was suspected of share price manipulation related to the company's purchase of shares of MiTAC Inc late last year.
Lwo pointed out that MiTAC's share price jumped from NT$21.2 on Nov. 9 to NT$25.8 two weeks later as market speculation of a potential major shareholding purchase by Chunghwa Telecom grew.
Ho confirmed that Chunghwa Telecom had tried to submit a major proposal for investment twice, but that it was rejected on both occasions by the ministry on the ground that the proposal should have been submitted at least seven days in advance.
The proposal was finally approved by Chunghwa Telecom's shareholders on Dec. 26 and MiTAC's share price surged further to NT$29.6.
Ho said he has ordered the Department of Posts and Telecommunications to investigate the matter.
"When necessary, Hochen might be asked to provide further explanations," he said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater