Responding to calls for better compensation for the nation’s workers, Council of Labor Affairs Minister Jennifer Wang (王如玄) yesterday hinted during a Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee meeting at the legislature that a minimum wage increase of more than 3 percent this year was “very likely.”
Lawmakers grilled Wang on whether the council was doing everything it can in the best interests of the nation’s workers.
With the pay for civil servants, who earn at least NT$35,000 per month, expected to rise by 3 percent, workers who do not work in the public sector are seriously lagging behind in terms of salary compensation and labor rights, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Huang Sue-ying (黃淑英) said.
She said those employees in jobs where the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) applies are treated as second-rate citizens at best because their benefits and rights are not on a par with civil servants.
“Those who are not included in the Labor Standards Act are even worse off, because according to Article 84-1, they may be exploited by their employers to work as many as 360 hours a month,” Huang said.
Huang was referring to an article which states that workers in certain industries “may arrange their own working hours, regular days off, national holidays and female workers’ night work through other agreements with their employers.”
Jobs at private security firms, which are categorized as “monitoring or intermittent jobs,” fall into this category and employers have taken advantage of this regulatory loophole to demand excessive work hours from employees, she said.
In defense of the council’s actions, Wang said it was doing everything it could to fight for workers’ rights.
“The NT$600 raise in the minimum wage that went into effect on Jan. 1 was a 3.47 percent increase, which is higher than the raise given to civil servants,” she said.
Wang said that in July, when the minimum wage adjustment committee meeting is set to take place, the council expects representatives of business groups to allow the minimum wage to be raised by more than 3 percent.
Aside from a higher minimum wage, Wang yesterday also hinted at hopes of establishing two-day weekends for all employees.
Currently, employees in jobs to which the Labor Standards Act applies work 84 hours every two weeks, with extra hours worked calculated as overtime.
However, when lawmakers asked Wang about whether the country would work toward a 40-hour working week, she said: “The council supports shorter working hours.”
However, Wang declined to comment on when a 40-hour working week might be implemented, saying only that the bigger focus right now was on better salaries for workers.
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