The wages of full-time research assistants at institutions that apply for government funding are to be evaluated based on expertise rather than academic degrees starting in August, the Ministry of Science and Technology announced yesterday, drawing criticism from labor rights advocates.
In a bid to reform diploma-centered wage standards, the ministry said that institutions would be given the right to adjust the wage standards of their assistants, but they would be advised to take into account the assistants’ duties and professional skills.
Under current standards, salaries for assistants with master’s degrees are pegged at NT$36,050 in the first year of employment, which is increased to NT$36,880 in the second year, the ministry said.
Photo: Wu Po-wei, Taipei Times
Although the wage standards published since 2005 were only intended to be used as a reference, most institutions continue to set their wages according to these standards, it added.
Across public and private institutions, students with the same work load are given different wages based on their different degrees, the ministry said, adding that it hopes to reform the standards to reflect other criteria.
Critics expressed concerns that the reforms might result in wage cuts.
Institutions tend to first cut personnel expenses, National Taiwan Normal University Department of English professor Huang Han-yu (黃涵榆) said.
“The policy would be like canceling the minimum wage of workers,” Taiwan Higher Education Union researcher Chen Po-chien (陳柏謙) said.
The policy would give more flexibility to individual institutions, Chen said, adding that schools might employ more part-time assistants to replace full-time ones, resulting in lower wages for assistants.
Asked if the ministry had consulted the union for its view on the issue, Chen said it had not.
“After the policy was announced I checked with professors I am acquainted with. None of them seemed to have any knowledge of the policy,” he said.
The union is planning its response to the amended policy, Chen said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,