Many large corporations would support substantial revisions to overtime regulations, a survey published yesterday by the Chinese-language Business Today magazine found, while some proposals drew criticism.
The magazine last month sent questionnaires to human resources departments of corporations with more than 5,000 employees, or with a market valuation of more than NT$100 billion (US$3.28 billion), senior writer Oscar Shieh (謝富旭) said, adding that 17 of the more than 70 questionnaires were returned.
All of the respondents said that the mandatory “one day off, one flexible rest day” measure passed last year was an obstacle to the development of new industries, with a large majority of respondents supporting simplifying overtime rates, relaxing “rest day” overtime calculation requirements, creating overtime rule exceptions for high-wage employees and relaxing maximum monthly overtime totals.
“The most important objective of any further revisions to the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) should be to ensure that workers have more leisure time, while also allowing for an improved overtime rate and ensuring that corporations can bear the costs,” Business Today president Andy Liang (梁永煌) said.
Implementation of the mandatory rules has drawn criticism, with the Executive Yuan last week saying that it “respects” proposals by Democractic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Ho Hsin-chun (何欣純) and others to relax the rules during the next legislative session.
Industry calls for exceptions to overtime rules drew criticism from National Taiwan University Graduate Institute of National Development professor Hsin Ping-lung (辛炳隆), who said that leaving too much open to negotiation could disadvantage workers, given the nation’s low unionization rate.
“The Labor Standards Act protects workers rights to a certain degree, but the portion governing work time is difficult to apply universally” because of different industry needs, Hsin said, adding that firm regulations are needed because many workers lack union protection.
“Given that industry is extremely hostile to unions and collective bargaining, we must use the Labor Standards Act and government regulations to lay down basic rules,” he said, adding that some flexibility could be introduced as long as firms still bear the costs.
Hsin said that the cap on monthly overtime hours should be increased from 46 to 54 — effectively restoring the eight standard working hours, which were cut by the “one mandatory day off, one flexible rest day” reform — while requiring employers to pay overtime.
“To prevent total hours from rising, we can still require that average overtime in three months must not exceed 138 hours, giving companies a bit of extra flexibility without affecting workers’ benefits,” Hsin said, adding that companies could be required to pay a higher rate than regular overtime if workers exceed the monthly cap.
He discounted industry concerns that a new higher overtime rate would be complicated to implement.
“All they have to do is use a computer program to make the calculations, so it would not be difficult at all, especially for big corporations,” he said.
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