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Students protest against abusive labor practices

Several student groups staged a demonstration in front of the Ministry of Education (MOE) yesterday, urging it to ensure that all university on-campus part-time workers and research assistants are protected by the Labor Standards Law (勞動基準法).

The demonstration was organized by the Youth Labor Union 95, the Solidarity of Communication Students, Taiwan and the National Chengchi University Graduate Student Association.

“This is unfair — the MOE should seek to protect students’ rights by making sure that they’re protected under the Labor Standards Law,” said Cheng Chung-jui (鄭中睿), the student labor union’s convener and a graduate student at National Chengchi University.

An informal survey conducted by the union found that as many as 55 percent of on-campus part-time student workers are not covered by labor insurance and more than 34 percent of research assistants are not covered.

Meanwhile, 55.4 percent of part-timers and 86.4 percent of research assistants said they were not paid for overtime.

“Other than asking [for the ministry’s] help to include on-campus part-timers and research assistants under the Labor Standards Law, we would also like to ask the ministry to keep an eye on colleges, so that they won’t cut the number of employees or lower the maximum number of hours people are allowed to work,” Chen Hsiao-wen (陳曉雯), a member of the youth union, said.

The ministry released a statement in response to the student groups’ requests saying they would discuss the matter with the Council of Labor Affairs.
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