The Taipei City Department of Labor fined a local company NT$100,000 for firing a female employee for marrying a coworker, establishing the nation’s first case against discrimination of relationships in the workplace.
The female employee, who developed a relationship with an office coworker, married this year. Upon learning of the marriage, the company said policy forbade office relationships and fired the bride, according to the department.
Department of Labor Director Chen Yeh-shin (陳業鑫) said the department began investigating the case after the woman filed a complaint. The company claimed that it fired her because of poor work performance, but failed to provide evidence to back up its claims.
Taipei City’s Gender Employment Equality Committee discussed the case last month and decided that the company had violated Article 11 of the Gender Equality in Employment Act (性別工作平等法), which stipulates that employers should not use marriage as a reason to fire people.
The department said the female employee was working at an investment and research firm. She said the firm had asked her to quit after she told her superintendent about the marriage. However, the firm said her husband could stay at the company.
This was the first employer to be fined for banning office relationships and firing an employee because he or she got married. The department declined to reveal the name of the firm or the identity of the worker.
Chen said firms can transfer workers to other departments if an office relationship develops and affects their performance.
If office relationships affect the performance of employees in the workplace, employers must first inform the employees and give them time to improve their performance before firing them, Chen said.
Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) was sentenced to six months in prison, commutable to a fine, by the New Taipei District Court today for contravening the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法) in a case linked to an alleged draft-dodging scheme. Wang allegedly paid NT$3.6 million (US$114,380) to an illegal group to help him evade mandatory military service through falsified medical documents, prosecutors said. He transferred the funds to Chen Chih-ming (陳志明), the alleged mastermind of a draft-evasion ring, although he lost contact with him as he was already in detention on fraud charges, they said. Chen is accused of helping a
UNREASONABLE SURVEILLANCE: A camera targeted on an road by a neighbor captured a man’s habitual unsignaled turn into home, netting him dozens of tickets The Taichung High Administrative Court has canceled all 45 tickets given to a man for failing to use a turn signal while driving, as it considered long-term surveillance of his privacy more problematic than the traffic violations. The man, surnamed Tseng (曾), lives in Changhua County and was reported 45 times within a month for failing to signal while driving when he turned into the alley where his residence is. The reports were filed by his neighbor, who set up security cameras that constantly monitored not only the alley but also the door and yard of Tseng’s house. The surveillance occurred from July
SECURITY: Starlink owner Elon Musk has taken pro-Beijing positions, and allowing pro-China companies to control Taiwan’s critical infrastructure is risky, a legislator said Starlink was reluctant to offer services in Taiwan because of the nation’s extremely high penetration rates in 4G and 5G services, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said yesterday. The ministry made the comments at a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, which reviewed amendments to Article 36 of the Telecommunications Management Act (電信管理法). Article 36 bans foreigners from holding more than 49 percent of shares in public telecommunications networks, while shares foreigners directly and indirectly hold are also capped at 60 percent of the total, unless specified otherwise by law. The amendments, sponsored by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ko
A Japan Self-Defense Forces vessel entered the Taiwan Strait yesterday, Japanese media reported. After passing through the Taiwan Strait, the Ikazuchi was to proceed to the South China Sea to take part in a joint military exercise with the US and the Philippines, the reports said. Japan Self-Defense Force vessels were first reported to have passed through the strait in September, 2024, with two further transits taking place in February and June last year, the Asahi Shimbun reported. Yesterday’s transit also marked the first time since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi took office that a Japanese warship has been sent through the Taiwan
RSS