Female workers cannot refuse employers’ requests to work night shifts unless they have proper cause, the Council of Grand Justices said yesterday.
Constitutional Interpretation No. 807 states that Paragraph 1, Article 49 of the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法), which prevented employers from forcing women to work nights, is invalid, as it runs counter to Article 7 of the Constitution, the council said, annulling the article effective immediately.
The first paragraph of Article 49 states that employers cannot force women to work between 10pm and 6am without approval from a union.
Photo: Wu Cheng-feng, Taipei Times
Employers could, with union approval or through an agreement with the worker, avoid this requirement by providing a safe and clean environment for them, or when there is no public transportation available, an employer must provide transportation or dormitories for female workers.
Employers asking women to work a night shift would have to ensure that work standards and facilities comply with regulations under the Labor Standards Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act (職業衛生安全法) and the Act of Gender Equality in Employment (性別工作平等法), the council said.
The protection offered under paragraph 5 of the article — such as forbidding pregnant women, or women who are breastfeeding from working night shifts — has also been removed.
A request for an interpretation was filed after Carrefour and China Airlines Ltd (中華航空) were penalized for contravening Paragraph 1, Article 49 of the Labor Standards Act.
The Taipei High Administrative Court had also filed a separate call for a constitutional interpretation regarding the same paragraph.
Additional reporting by Chen Chia-yu
The domestically designed Teng Yun 2 drone passed development milestones over the weekend, flying for more than 10 hours straight and circling Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ), in the longest flight of an indigenous uncrewed combat aerial vehicle. Developed by the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology, the Teng Yun 2, or “Cloud Rider” (騰雲二型), recorded its longest flight yet over the weekend, after a three-hour test flight last month, followed by five and seven-hour stretches in the air. The Teng Yun 2 No. 1812 departed from Chiashan Air Base in Hualien County at 6:46pm on Saturday and flew on a
A slew of new measures are to take effect on Friday, including nationwide bring-your-own-cup discounts. The new rule requires chain beverage shops to offer discounts of at least NT$5 (US$0.17) to customers who bring their own cups, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has said. The policy would apply to more than 50,000 chain retail locations, including beverage shops, convenience stores, fast-food restaurants and supermarkets. It aims to cut down on waste from single-use plastic cups, more than 2.2 billion of which were used in Taiwan in 2020, the agency said. For convenience, the EPA said it has asked retailers to display signs stating how
TIMING: 'The CHIPS Act funding is crucial for us. In other words, if the act’s passage is delayed for too long, we will certainly need to adjust,’ chairwoman Doris Hsu said GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓) plans to start construction on a US$5 billion wafer fabrication facility in Texas in November, after passage of the US$52 billion Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) for America Act. The fab would be the largest of its kind in the US and one of the largest in the world, with a monthly capacity of 1.2 million wafers, GlobalWafers said, adding that the investment would be the first new fab in the US in more than 20 years and critical to closing a semiconductor supply chain gap. The world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier said the project, which
COUNTERING CHINA: ‘When democracies demonstrate what we can do ... I have no doubt that we’ll win that competition every time,’ US President Joe Biden said US President Joe Biden rebooted his effort to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) after an earlier campaign faltered, enlisting the support of G7 leaders at their summit in Germany. The Build Back Better World initiative, named after Biden’s domestic spending and climate agenda, struggled to get off the ground because not enough G7 partners contributed financially when it was unveiled a year ago, people familiar with its lack of progress said. “When democracies demonstrate what we can do — all that we have to offer — I have no doubt that we’ll win that competition every time,” Biden said during
RSS