A new Ministry of Labor interpretation of how to regulate workers’ “mandatory day off” drew mixed reaction from labor groups yesterday, with some saying the interpretation leaves a loophole for employers, while others called the issue inconsequential.
“The content is not substantially different from the previous interpretation,” Taipei Confederation of Trade Unions executive director Chen Shu-lun (陳淑綸) said. “The solution here should be firms paying and hiring more, rather than getting legal exceptions — the ministry’s decision will just lead to further demands from other industries to be included [in the exceptions].”
The new interpretation announced on Thursday is a more rigorous interpretation of the “seven days” during which an employee must take a “mandatory day off” under the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法). It includes a list of exceptions for specific kinds of work, such as meat processing and transportation during national holidays.
A more lenient interpretation of “seven days” applies to the exceptions, giving affected firms greater flexibility in scheduling shifts.
The ministry originally planned to apply the stricter interpretation across the board, but did a U-turn after bus companies announced massive cuts to their weekend and national holiday schedules.
Even though the scope of the new exceptions is more specific than the previous regulations, the ministry’s flip-flop raises questions about whether it will stand firm against calls to apply them to additional business sectors, Chen said, dismissing a statement by Deputy Minister of Labor Liao Hui-fang (廖蕙芳) that firms would only be allowed to make a “one-time” use of the exceptions.
“There’s no process to enforce the restrictions, except the requirement that employees give their consent,” Chen said.
“We are OK with anything that guarantees a definite amount of rest time under reasonable conditions,” National Drivers’ Union secretary-general Huang Shu-hui (黃淑惠) said, adding that the changes were “inconsequential” because either a flexible or rigid interpretation of “seven days” would be acceptable to union members.
General Chamber of Commerce chairman Lai Cheng-i (賴正鎰) said that because only “one-time” use of the exceptions is allowed, the regulations would not resolve the problems of some industries, such as security and travel firms.
Additional reporting by Huang Pang-ping and Lo Chien-yi
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not