The Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) said yesterday that it would convene an interagency meeting in the middle of next month to deal with potentially heavy layoffs in the labor industry at the end of the year.
The agency will invite officials from the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, the Financial Supervisory Commission, the Government Information Office and top city and county labor officials to discuss the possible layoffs and potential labor-management disputes.
PREVENTION
The agency hopes to hear advice and collect information about the industrial situation and strengthen preventative measures to ease the effects of plant closures, the council said.
The agency said that in light of the marked increase in the number of workers already dismissed this year, they are worried that even more layoffs could take place at the end of the year.
Agency statistics showed that the number of laborers who were laid off had dropped from 16,700 in 2005 to 14,221 last year.
But it said that since the beginning of this year, domestic and international economic woes had led to a dramatic rise in the number of layoffs, with plant closures pushing the number to 13,743 in the first seven months of the year.
As the nation’s economic difficulties could worsen in the final part of the year, the agency predicted that the number would continue to rise.
SUBSIDIES
Currently, laborers who sue their employers for back wages, severance pay or pension payments receive subsidies for legal fees and living expenses provided by the agency.
If former laborers start their own businesses, they can apply for loans from the agency, the officials said.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
A Taiwanese woman on Sunday was injured by a small piece of masonry that fell from the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican during a visit to the church. The tourist, identified as Hsu Yun-chen (許芸禎), was struck on the forehead while she and her tour group were near Michelangelo’s sculpture Pieta. Hsu was rushed to a hospital, the group’s guide to the church, Fu Jing, said yesterday. Hsu was found not to have serious injuries and was able to continue her tour as scheduled, Fu added. Mathew Lee (李世明), Taiwan’s recently retired ambassador to the Holy See, said he met
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
RSS