The Taipei City Government yesterday announced that it would hold Uber Eats and Foodpanda accountable if they fail to report injuries or accidents involving their contracted drivers within eight hours of an incident.
Delaying a report contravenes Article 37-1 of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (職業安全衛生法), and is punishable by a fine of NT$30,000 to NT$300,000 (US$976 to US$9,765), the Taipei Department of Labor said.
Labor Inspection Office head Chiang Ming-chih (江明志) said that Uber Eats and Foodpanda have delivered lists of their employees, records of previous deliveries and wages received to the division.
The department would go through the records and discuss whether the two companies’ operations abide by the law.
If they are found to have subjected their employees to illegal working conditions, the companies could each face a fine of up to NT$1.75 million, the department said.
The government is looking into the work environment in the food delivery sector after Foodpanda and Uber Eats couriers died in traffic accidents on Thursday last week and Sunday respectively.
Couriers are employees rather than contractors, which means that the two companies would have to provide their workers with labor insurance and issue compensation for any work-related accidents, the Ministry of Labor said on Monday.
However, on Tuesday both companies said that they have no intention of changing their business models.
Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) was sentenced to six months in prison, commutable to a fine, by the New Taipei District Court today for contravening the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法) in a case linked to an alleged draft-dodging scheme. Wang allegedly paid NT$3.6 million (US$114,380) to an illegal group to help him evade mandatory military service through falsified medical documents, prosecutors said. He transferred the funds to Chen Chih-ming (陳志明), the alleged mastermind of a draft-evasion ring, although he lost contact with him as he was already in detention on fraud charges, they said. Chen is accused of helping a
SECURITY: Starlink owner Elon Musk has taken pro-Beijing positions, and allowing pro-China companies to control Taiwan’s critical infrastructure is risky, a legislator said Starlink was reluctant to offer services in Taiwan because of the nation’s extremely high penetration rates in 4G and 5G services, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said yesterday. The ministry made the comments at a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, which reviewed amendments to Article 36 of the Telecommunications Management Act (電信管理法). Article 36 bans foreigners from holding more than 49 percent of shares in public telecommunications networks, while shares foreigners directly and indirectly hold are also capped at 60 percent of the total, unless specified otherwise by law. The amendments, sponsored by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ko
The eastern extension of the Taipei MRT Red Line could begin operations as early as late June, the Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems said yesterday. Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said it is considering offering one month of free rides on the new section to mark its opening. Construction progress on the 1.4km extension, which is to run from the current terminal Xiangshan Station to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, was 90.6 percent complete by the end of last month, the department said in a report to the Taipei City Council's Transportation Committee. While construction began in October 2016 with an
NON-RED SUPPLY: Boosting the nation’s drone industry is becoming increasingly urgent as China’s UAV dominance could become an issue in a crisis, an analyst said Taiwan’s drone exports to Europe grew 41.7-fold from 2024 to last year, with demand from Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression the most likely driver of growth, a study showed. The Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET) in a statement on Wednesday said it found that many of Taiwan’s uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) sales were from Poland and the Czech Republic. These countries likely transferred the drones to Ukraine to aid it in its fight against the Russian invasion that started in 2022, it said. Despite the gains, Taiwan is not the dominant drone exporter to these markets, ranking second and fourth
RSS