During the process of formulating the five-day workweek policy, which gives employees one fixed day and one flexible day off each week, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government was on the one hand pressured by idealist moral labor rights doctrine, while on the other hand yielding to the interests of big business.
During a policy debate, the government only paid attention to the coordination of opinions among interest groups while overlooking overall strategic thinking about economic and labor policies, and it did not have any plans to implement the policy.
The government devised a system that requires employers to pay employees more for working overtime on their flexible days off in the mistaken belief that this would be a solution that satisfied both sides.
As the negative consequences of the policy continue to emerge, the government should at least be able to display the capability to reverse its failure by focusing on what could be called a “supreme policy for industrial transformation.”
The implemented system was in response to the dual problems of low income and overwork. These are intimately related to the nature of Taiwanese businesses, and it is an issue related to overall economic and industrial transformation.
The government should take a birds-eye view of the situation and reconstruct the policy in a way that integrates its every aspect, including issues such as innovation incentives, assistance during a transitional period, labor inspections, a job transfer program and unemployment relief. It should also include the role of technical and vocational schools into the policy, and consider the notion of institutes of higher education offering recurrent education — spreading education over the life span of an individual — as well as cooperation between schools and industries.
In a previous op-ed article (“Why labor law changes fall short of necessity,” Jan. 8, page 8), I wrote that Sweden went through a successful industrial upgrade in the late 1940s by raising wages for manual workers, which forced inefficient businesses and companies making low profits out of the market.
The Swedish government also provided a vast array of resources for job training and hired many of the laid-off workers, which helped the government achieve the goal of upgrading the nation’s industry. By doing so, it helped struggling businesses that had no room left for further development.
In the face of the flawed five-day workweek policy, the government should require that the National Development Council, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Education engage in cross-ministerial integration tasks. They should integrate the policy into a comprehensive set of complementary and mutually beneficial measures. These should then be matched with the government’s policies aiming at upgrading the nation’s industries to reverse the negative consequences of the five-day workweek.
Doing so would allow the government’s policies to work in synergy.
Chen Chia-lin is the deputy director of the Taiwan Solidarity Union’s publicity department.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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