The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday cast doubt on the credibility of a poll that the Ministry of Labor said indicated a high level of public support for its proposed “one fixed day off with one flexible rest day” (一例一休) policy, alleging that the survey was conducted by a peripheral agency of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
KMT Culture and Communications Committee deputy director-general Hu Wen-chi (胡文琦) told a news conference at party headquarters yesterday morning in Taipei that he suspected that half of the respondents in the poll were not private-sector employees, but rather DPP staffers.
“The survey cited by the ministry was conducted by Master Survey and Research Co (精湛民調), whose chairman, Cheng Chun-sheng (鄭俊昇), and supervisor, Lee Kuan-fang (李寬芳), formerly worked for the DPP’s poll center,” Hu said.
Photo: Huang Yao-cheng, Taipei Times
Hu said that after netizens drew attention to the association between Master Survey and Research and the DPP, the company removed all background information about its staff members on Tuesday.
Nevertheless, Vice Minister of Labor Kuo Kuo-wen (郭國文) and Premier Lin Chuan (林全) still maintained that the survey results could withstand scrutiny, Hu said, accusing President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration of being “both a player and a referee in the game.”
Hu was referring to a survey cited by the labor ministry during a coordination meeting between the executive and legislative branches of government on Monday.
At a press conference after the meeting, Executive Yuan Spokesman Tung Chen-yuan (童振源) quoted the ministry as saying that 85.8 percent of respondents in the poll supported the ministry’s five-day workweek policy, with one day off counting as an ordinary leave and the other as a “rest day.”
An alternative proposal in which both days off are to be counted as ordinary leave only received a support rating of 53 percent, Tung said, adding that the ministry believed the “one fixed day off with one flexible rest day” idea was favored by both labor and management.
The main difference between the “two days of ordinary leave” (週休二例) and the “one fixed day off with one flexible rest day” proposals is employers can only ask employees to work on their ordinary leave in the event of a natural disaster or emergency and are required to compensate them with an additional one day’s salary plus a compensatory day off.
However, management only has to obtain employees’ prior consent to have them work on their “rest day.” Employers are obligated to provide additional pay ranging from one and one-third to one and two-thirds times the worker’s basic salary, but need not offer them compensatory leave.
Hu said the Tsai administration has reneged on its pledges to reduce working hours and address the problem of low and stagnant wages.
He said Tung should explain to the public whether he had prior knowledge that the poll was conducted by a DPP peripheral agency before citing it.
The policy drew fire from both business leaders and workers’ rights advocates.
Business leaders said the proposal would only increase the financial burden with increased overtime salaries, while labor groups said it would “open a backdoor” for businesses to have their employees work more overtime hours.
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