After several weeks of criticism for its handling of companies forcing workers to take unpaid leave, the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) announced yesterday it had obtained figures on the severity of the forced-leave situation.
About 200,000 people are currently on unpaid leave, council minister Jennifer Wang (王如玄) told reporters.
The average worker on unpaid leave is taking four to five days off a month and the practice is predominantly seen in the manufacturing sector, she said.
Wang said she understood the plight of workers who have been ordered to take unpaid leave and promised that the council would act in their best interest.
Wang made the comments at yesterday’s ceremony to officially welcome the entry into force of the new Labor Insurance Annuity scheme.
The ceremony was attended by many government officials and lawmakers, including President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), Premier Liu Chao-hsiuan (劉兆玄) and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平).
Jennifer Wang said that the new scheme was expected to immediately benefit 2 million workers.
The scheme, similar to a social security program, was passed by the legislature on July 17. Individuals who have never participated in the labor insurance program until the new program was introduced — such as recent graduates starting their first jobs — are only entitled to monthly pensions after retirement rather than having the option of collecting a one-time pension payment, as was possible under the previous scheme.
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:
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