More than 80 percent of stores around universities across the nation have violated the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法), including paying female student workers lower wages than their male counterparts, a survey by a student organization showed.
The poll, conducted by the student bodies of 10 universities, surveyed 561 stores on or near school campuses and found that 449 had broken the law.
More than 60 percent of the stores did not set aside 6 percent of students’ salaries for Labor Pension Fund or Labor Insurance Fund payments.
A number of stores did not enroll their student employees in the Labor Insurance Program or give them double pay when they worked on national holidays, the survey showed.
National Chung Cheng University Student Welfare Club vice president Chen Kuan-lin (陳冠霖) said that one store near the campus is known to offer students below the minimum wage of NT$133 per hour.
The store also discriminated against women by paying them lower hourly rates than their male counterparts, Chen said.
The store has adopted an equal pay policy after the survey was made public, but some female employees have quit because of “nasty comments” made by the proprietor.
National Chung Cheng University fared the worst in the survey, with all 39 stores surveyed near its campus failing to meet labor standards.
Many students do not ask for written work contracts, placing them at a disadvantage when conflict arises with management, National Chengchi University Student Labor Rights Promotion Society member Wu Chao-ju (吳昭儒) said.
Wu called on the government to carry out more labor inspections, adding that student groups that participated in the survey have agreed to provide the findings to local governments’ labor affairs departments.
Taiwan Alliance for Advancement of Youth Rights and Welfare member Wu Cheng-che (吳政哲) said the central government should promote vocational training for high-school students and educate young people about workers’ rights.
The Ministry of Labor said that part-time workers can appeal to local authorities if they feel their employers have committed labor violations.
Employers found breaking the law will be fined accordingly, the ministry said.
Workers may also seek government mediation if their employers withhold their wages, it added.
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
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,
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