Last year, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released statistics on the average annual number of hours worked per worker. Taiwan ranked third, with an annual average of 2,134 hours, after first-place Mexico (2,246 hours) and Costa Rica (2,230 hours).
Taiwan’s average is 368 hours more than the OECD average of 1,766 hours. Based on an eight-hour work day, this means Taiwanese work an additional 46 days per year. If working a six-day week, that is the equivalent of working an extra eight weeks per year.
The contrast with Germany, whose workers worked an average of 1,371 hours last year, is even greater: Taiwanese worked 763 hours more. If routine overtime is added into the equation, Taiwanese put in about 80 days more, or about three months: Taiwan is a proper “sweatshop island.”
Long working hours implies low efficiency and that workers’ value as a unit of economic production is low. Even worse, the long hours have been accompanied by ever-decreasing salaries. Not only is there a problem with GDP growth, there are also serious imbalances in income distribution and in the way the fruits of economic growth are shared.
Compared with other countries, Taiwan is in a dark place in terms of poor working conditions and general economic gloom. The picture of Taiwan is one of long working hours and low pay.
A reduction in working hours requires complementary measures. Systemic adjustments are important, such as shortening the legally allowed working hours per day, week, month and year, including normal working hours with maximum limits, holidays, annual leave and public holidays.
However, even more important is taking up the challenge of reforming business production units and methods of production. After cutting working hours, how would businesses be able to achieve their targets and maintain production without making the corresponding changes to staffing configurations, such as expanding their workforce or using a new shift work model?
If there is no increase in the labor supply and a business does not want to reduce operating hours, similar to restrictions placed upon the operating hours of service industries in European nations, how would it be possible to reduce working hours?
The problem is that even if progress is made through legal amendments, it does not matter how advanced they are if they cannot be made to the rationale and structure of the productive economy and the labor market; the government’s policy would descend into farce.
Previous quick-fix failures include China’s 1994 Labor Act stipulating a 44-hour working week, our own Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法), which tried to impose a 84-hour bi-weekly limit, and Japanese companies that leaned on their employees to clock out at the allotted time and then return to their desks.
The government’s proposal of one fixed day off and one flexible rest day contains the whiff of surrender.
The original policy was to amend the law to enforce a mandatory five-day working week. However, by first introducing one fixed day off and encouraging firms to refrain from requiring employees to work overtime and asking them to “considerately” increase the salary for workers who work on their flexible rest day, the government is introducing a policy lacking in substance and falling short of proper procedure.
Regardless of the issue of wage efficiency, such “suggestions” would fail to bring about a reduction in working hours. Perhaps the government is not that keen on reducing the working week after all.
Lin Chia-ho is an associate professor at National Chengchi University’s College of Law.
Translated by Edward Jones
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