The Taipei City Government will fine a Next Media Group subsidiary for carrying out mass layoffs in contravention of the labor laws, Chen Yeh-shin (陳業鑫), head of the city’s Department of Labor, said yesterday.
Next Multi-media Entertainment Services failed to give adequate notice to the city’s labor department that it planned to sack 234 of its 256 workers, Chen said
By law, the company is required to give at least 60 days notice of a layoff of that size, he said.
The firm will be fined between NT$100,000 and NT$500,000 for violation of the Act on the Protection Against Mass Dismissal of Employees (大量解雇勞工保護法), he said.
The act stipulates that a business entity with 200 to 500 workers must give at least 60 days notice if it plans to lay off more than one-fourth of its employees over a three-month period or let go more than 50 workers in one day.
The firm informed the labor department on Oct. 1 that it was laying off 204 workers, starting that same day, and two weeks later it revised the number to 234, Chen said.
To date, the company has laid off 95 workers and expects to complete its redundancy action by the end of the month.
Its parent company, the Hong Kong-based media giant Next Media, gave notice to the Taipei City labor department earlier this month that it planned to lay off a total of 551 employees at three of its subsidiaries — Next TV Broadcasting, Next Multi-media Entertainment Services and Next E-Shopping.
The notice indicated that 300 out of 990 workers at Next TV would become redundant, but the company later informed the labor department that it had revised the number to 178 and that the layoffs would be carried out between this month and December, Chen said.
Meanwhile Next E-shopping plans to let go 47 of its 86 employees, but is still preparing its notice for submission to the labor department, he said.
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