The Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) yesterday confirmed allegations made by employees that Young Fast Optical Inc (洋華光電) had illegally employed workers under the age of 16 to work long hours.
The touch-panel sensor maker, which employs more than 700 people has recently been accused of several instances of malpractice by members of the company’s union, including illegal mass lay-offs of workers, replacing laid off domestic workers with foreign labor, failure to provide payment for overtime, insufficient allocation of labor pension funds and the illegal employment of cooperation education program students (under the age of 16) to work overtime.
The Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) prohibits cooperation education program students under the age of 16 working more than eight hours per day. Employers in violation are criminally liable and can be punished with up to six years in prison and fined up to NT$20,000.
The union alleged that Young Fast ordered its underage workers to be on duty for as long as 12 hours each day.
National Federation of Independent Trade Unions president Chu Wei-li (朱維立) also said that to avoid being investigated, Young Fast called an emergency meeting over the weekend to terminate its contracts with more than 300 students who had been forced to work overtime.
Young Fast is “completely blind to labor regulation laws,” Chu said. “People should know that the popular [touch screen] cellphones are ‘blood cellphones.’”
The CLA said labor officials at the Taoyuan County Government have investigated the claims made by the union and handed the case over to county prosecutors for further investigation.
The company posted a statement on its Web site two weeks ago denying the allegations. Calls to the company for comment yesterday went unanswered.
Costa Rica sent a group of intelligence officials to Taiwan for a short-term training program, the first time the Central American country has done so since the countries ended official diplomatic relations in 2007, a Costa Rican media outlet reported last week. Five officials from the Costa Rican Directorate of Intelligence and Security last month spent 23 days in Taipei undergoing a series of training sessions focused on national security, La Nacion reported on Friday, quoting unnamed sources. The Costa Rican government has not confirmed the report. The Chinese embassy in Costa Rica protested the news, saying in a statement issued the same
Temperatures in New Taipei City’s Sindian District (新店) climbed past 37°C yesterday, as the Central Weather Administration (CWA) issued heat alerts for 16 municipalities, warning the public of intense heat expected across Taiwan. The hottest location in Taiwan was in Sindian, where the mercury reached 37.5°C at about 2pm, according to CWA data. Taipei’s Shilin District (士林) recorded a temperature of 37.4°C at noon, Taitung County’s Jinfeng Township (金峰) at 12:50 pm logged a temperature of 37.4°C and Miaoli County’s Toufen Township (頭份) reached 36.7°C at 11:40am, the CWA said. The weather agency yesterday issued a yellow level information notice for Taipei, New
Taiwan’s Liu Ming-i, right, who also goes by the name Ray Liu, poses with a Chinese Taipei flag after winning the gold medal in the men’s physique 170cm competition at the International Fitness and Bodybuilding Federation Asian Championship in Ajman, United Arab Emirates, yesterday.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
RSS