The Examination Yuan yesterday approved new vacation and leave guidelines for the civil service, which it said would make the government a more flexible and family-friendly workplace.
The new guidelines, which are to take effect next month, would allow civil servants to take personal or family leave in blocks of one hour, rather than half a day, as has been the practice, the Examination Yuan said at a news conference.
All forms of leave other than maternity leave would be calculated on an hourly basis, said the Ministry of Civil Service, whose proposal prompted the changes.
Photo: Chang Yi-chen, Taipei Times
Civil servants would also be allowed to take a maximum of seven days off per year — from five days — and the “compassionate leave” granted after the death of a grandparent would be revised to 10 days, the ministry said.
The ministry drafted the revisions in consideration of civil servants who are raising families, it said, adding that the increased flexibility and length of leave would meet childcare needs.
A ministry official said that the revision is to bring the civil service’s guidelines in line with those for military personnel and teachers, who already receive seven paid leave days per year.
The Act of Gender Equality in Employment (性別工作平等法) mandates such changes to ensure adequate family time for workers, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Compassionate leave for the death of a grandparent was increased because the five days currently granted — compared with 10 days for the death of an in-law — is unreasonable, the official said.
While the current guidelines require applications for compassionate leave to be made no later than 100 days after the death, the revised guideline allows religious and customary exceptions, the official said.
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:
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