The government will create an unemployment early warning system and strengthen procedures to deal with labor-management disputes in anticipation of mass layoffs at local companies being hurt by the global economic downturn, an official said yesterday.
These and other measures were agreed upon at an inter-agency meeting convened by the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) on Thursday to address issues related to protecting workers’ rights, the official said.
The meeting, attended by representatives from the Ministry of Justice and various central and local government agencies in charge of labor affairs, was aimed at strengthening exchanges among those agencies, the official said.
Aside from setting up an early-warning system and improving the standard operating procedures used to handle labor-management conflicts, the government would also establish a single window to facilitate information exchange among government agencies and set up a Web site to deal with labor disputes.
Those at the meeting also agreed to hold regular cross-agency coordination meetings to help labor affairs officials stay on top of changes in early warning unemployment indicators and effectively settle industrial disputes, the labor council official said.
CLA Minister Jennifer Wang (王如玄) said in order to ease public concern over potential mass layoffs in the face of the global economic downturn, the government should stand on the side of workers and give priority to protecting their employment rights, the council official said.
Wang also advised employers facing operating difficulties to adjust their management strategies to protect the interests of their employees before they move to negotiate a layoff agreement with their staff.
The minister said that the council was more than willing to help enterprises hold dialogue with their employees to pursue a better approach when solving such problems.
The Taipei Summer Festival is to begin tomorrow at Dadaocheng Wharf (大稻埕), featuring four themed firework shows and five live music performances throughout the month, the Taipei Department of Information and Tourism said today. The festival in the city’s Datong District (大同) is to run until Aug. 30, holding firework displays on Wednesdays and the final Saturday of the event. The first show is scheduled for tomorrow, followed by Aug. 13, 20 and 30. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Disney Pixar's movie Toy Story, the festival has partnered with Walt Disney Co (Taiwan) to host a special themed area on
Aftershocks from a magnitude 6.2 earthquake that struck off Yilan County at 3:45pm yesterday could reach a magnitude of 5 to 5.5, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Seismological Center technical officer Chiu Chun-ta (邱俊達) told a news conference that the epicenter of the temblor was more than 100km from Taiwan. Although predicted to measure between magnitude 5 and 5.5, the aftershocks would reach an intensity of 1 on Taiwan’s 7-tier scale, which gauges the actual effect of an earthquake, he said. The earthquake lasted longer in Taipei because the city is in a basin, he said. The quake’s epicenter was about 128.9km east-southeast
BE CAREFUL: The virus rarely causes severe illness or death, but newborns, older people and those with medical conditions are at risk of more severe illness As more than 7,000 cases of chikungunya fever have been reported in China’s Guangdong Province this year, including 2,892 new cases last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday said it is monitoring the situation and considering raising the travel notice level, which might be announced today. The CDC issued a level 1 travel notice, or “watch,” for Guangdong Province on July 22, citing an outbreak in Foshan, a manufacturing hub in the south of the province, that was reported early last month. Between July 27 and Saturday, the province reported 2,892 new cases of chikungunya, reaching a total of 7,716
STAY VIGILANT: People should reduce the risk of chronic liver inflammation by avoiding excessive alcohol consumption, smoking and eating pickled foods, the physician said A doctor last week urged people to look for five key warning signs of acute liver failure after popular producer-turned-entertainer Shen Yu-lin (沈玉琳) was reportedly admitted to an intensive care unit for fulminant hepatitis. Fulminant hepatitis is the rapid and massive death of liver cells, impairing the organ’s detoxification, metabolic, protein synthesis and bile production functions, which if left untreated has a mortality rate as high as 80 percent, according to the Web site of Advancing Clinical Treatment of Liver Disease, an international organization focused on liver disease prevention and treatment. People with hepatitis B or C are at higher risk of
RSS