The central government needs to give clear instructions on how local governments should handle the salaries of employees on “disease prevention childcare leave,” Taipei Deputy Mayor Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) said yesterday
The Central Epidemic Command Center on Sunday announced that the new school semester would be pushed back two weeks from Tuesday next week to Feb. 25 in an effort to reduce the likelihood of clustered infections of the 2019 novel coronavirus.
“Disease prevention childcare leave” was introduced by the Ministry of Labor to deal with the policy, stipulating that companies must allow a parent of a child aged 12 or under to take special leave between Tuesday next week and Feb. 24, but companies are to decide whether the employee should be paid their salary during the days off.
Photo: Shen Pei-yao, Taipei Times
Huang said she has asked the Taipei Department of Personnel for advice on the new policy.
The Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) allows employees to take up to seven days a year paid family care leave, she said, adding that if civil servants or contract employees used seven days of family care leave as part of the 14 days “disease prevention childcare leave,” they might have to take seven dayunpaid leave.
While companies have more flexibility in decisionmaking, the city government must conform to the central government’s rules, she said, expressing the hope that the Executive Yuan would give clear instructions to local governments on how “disease prevention childcare leave” salaries should be handled.
Contract employees on welfare-to-work programs are mainly socially disadvantaged, so the Taipei Department of Social Welfare would also need to look into the issue and hopefully implement a more lenient measures, she said.
Meanwhile, in response to inquiries about extra working hours being undertaken by industries contributing to coronavirus preventive efforts, the ministry said that special regulations designed for “natural disasters, accidents or unexpected events” in the Labor Standards Act would apply during the disease-prevention period.
Therefore, the maximum 12 working hours per day regulation would not apply to those industries, it said, adding that companies must within 24 hours of the start of extended hours inform their labor union or the relevant government agency.
Employers can suspend an employee’s holidays if necessary, but double pay or a makeup day must be given in lieu, it added.
Additional reporting by Lee Ya-wen
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