Labor rights advocates yesterday said that a proposed amendment to the controversial workweek policy could lead to more conflict between employees and employers if the two sides cannot back their arguments with valid data.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chung Kung-chao (鍾孔炤), labor advocates and representatives from workers’ unions yesterday held a news conference at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei, urging employees to ask their employers to stop being greedy, saying that is the reason workers in Taiwan and around the world continue to work for low wages.
More news conferences would not rescue workers from their plight if they do not speak for themselves, they said.
The news conference came ahead of the World Day for Decent Work, which is observed on Oct. 7 every year.
The theme of the International Trade Union Confederation’s May Day statement this year was ending corporate greed, Chung said.
“One fixed day off and one flexible rest day” is supposed to be a progressive policy, but “greedy corporations” have proposed different amendments intended to make it worse than current or previous policies, he said.
The regression proposed by corporations would only make the work environment worse, Chung said, adding that Taiwan is No. 6 among nations with longest working hours.
Statistics have shown that the labor policy has been mostly positive for employees and the work environment, Chung said.
Premier William Lai’s (賴清德) decision to raise the salaries of government employees is meant to raise the salaries of workers in the private sector as well, he added.
“Employees have to work overtime because they are working for low wages. If the amendment was done recklessly, it would be against the idea of upholding workers’ dignity that this administration stands for,” he said.
Taiwan Labor Front secretary-general Sun Yu-lien (孫友聯) said that he has attended many hearings and found that many corporations are simply too greedy, adding that their problems would not be solved even if the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) were abolished.
“The culture of greed has been so deep-rooted that it would take a long time before we feel its pain,” Sun said.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift