Labor rights groups and unions yesterday blasted the Ministry of Labor’s proposed reforms to Article 28 of the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法), saying that the measures fail to adequately protect the rights of workers of liquidated or bankrupt companies.
The proposed reforms were made in response to several labor movements aimed at helping workers from bankrupt firms reclaim their unpaid pensions, including the recently resolved Hualon Corp case, in which retired workers said they were owed NT$ 1 million each by the textiles manufacturer.
Article 28 currently only provides compensation for unpaid wages through a special government fund made up of mandatory deposits by employers, but it does not cover compensation for unpaid pensions and severance packages.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
The ministry’s draft amendment proposes covering unpaid pensions equivalent to up to six months of a worker’s salary, but labor groups say the fund should provide for full compensation.
Taoyuan County Confederation of Trade Unions secretary-general Wang Hao (王浩) said that the government should help workers by acting as creditors to bankrupt companies.
“Compared with underprivileged workers, the government is better equipped to use its public authority to conduct negotiations with the companies,” Wang said.
Hualon Self-Help Organization secretary Hsu Jen-yuan (徐任遠) said that reforms should be carried out thoroughly if they are to have a meaningful effect.
“If we don’t want to see a second or third reenactment of the Hualon incident, the government should guarantee that workers receive 100 percent of their pensions,” Hsu said.
Under the national pension system used prior to 2005 — before new regulations requiring employers to shoulder the allocation and payment of 6 percent of a worker’s monthly salary as pension — workers were entitled to receive pensions equivalent to 45 months of their base salary.
Although the ministry’s draft amendment would also stipulate that debt repayment to employees should receive the same priority as repayment to banks, labor activists said the measure would do little to help workers.
“Even if workers receive priority in debt repayment, it might take years for the companies to repay them,” Wang said. “However, pensions and wages are crucial to workers’ livelihoods.”
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