Employers “act as they see fit” over the provision of childcare, New Power Party (NPP) Legislator Hung Tzu-yung (洪慈庸) said yesterday, accusing the Ministry of Labor of failing to actively encourage the establishment of formal day care facilities within corporations and public agencies.
“The current situation is that everyone acts as they see fit, which typically means taking childcare ‘measures’ rather than providing childcare ‘facilities,’ because the former is cheaper,” she said during a hearing of the Legislative Yuan’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee, held to discuss favorable child-rearing conditions to improve stubbornly low birth rates.
In response to Hung’s remarks, Deputy Minister of Labor Hau Feng-ming (郝鳳鳴) said that only about 100 of the nation’s more than 4,000 government agencies, public schools and public corporations have established day care facilities, compared with 4.1 percent of corporations that have more than 250 employees.
“If the government does not lead the way, how can we encourage private employers to act?” Hung said, adding that 20 percent of large employers have failed to adopt childcare measures, violating Act of Gender Equality in Employment (性別工作平等法) requirements.
In response to questions from Hung on what the ministry considered to be a friendly work environment, Hau said employers providing childcare measures instead of facilities was an “acceptable” measure to cut costs.
“Establishing a day care facility is extremely expensive and has to be managed over the long term, so we feel that taking ‘measures’ is acceptable, as long as they resolve childcare problems,” he said.
While the Act of Gender Equality in Employment requires all organizations or companies with more than 250 employees to either provide childcare facilities or take childcare measures, the law does not allow for the penalization of employers who fail to comply, with some opting out after judging that their employees have no need for childcare, Department of Employment Welfare and Retirement head Chen Hsiu-chin (陳秀琴) said.
Childcare measures refer to either negotiating a collective contract with an outside facility to provide day care for employees, or providing employees with childcare subsidy allowances, she added.
Actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has “returned home” to Taiwan, and there are no plans to hold a funeral for the TV star who died in Japan from influenza- induced pneumonia, her family said in a statement Wednesday night. The statement was released after local media outlets reported that Barbie Hsu’s ashes were brought back Taiwan on board a private jet, which arrived at Taipei Songshan Airport around 3 p.m. on Wednesday. To the reporters waiting at the airport, the statement issued by the family read “(we) appreciate friends working in the media for waiting in the cold weather.” “She has safely returned home.
A Vietnamese migrant worker on Thursday won the NT$12 million (US$383,590) jackpot on a scratch-off lottery ticket she bought from a lottery shop in Changhua County’s Puyan Township (埔鹽), Taiwan Lottery Co said yesterday. The lottery winner, who is in her 30s and married, said she would continue to work in Taiwan and send her winnings to her family in Vietnam to improve their life. More Taiwanese and migrant workers have flocked to the lottery shop on Sec 2 of Jhangshuei Road (彰水路) to share in the luck. The shop owner, surnamed Chen (陳), said that his shop has been open for just
Global bodies should stop excluding Taiwan for political reasons, President William Lai (賴清德) told Pope Francis in a letter, adding that he agrees war has no winners. The Vatican is one of only 12 countries to retain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and Taipei has watched with concern efforts by Beijing and the Holy See to improve ties. In October, the Vatican and China extended an accord on the appointment of Catholic bishops in China for four years, pointing to a new level of trust between the two parties. Lai, writing to the pope in response to the pontiff’s message on Jan. 1’s
MUST REMAIN FREE: A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would lead to a global conflict, and if the nation blows up, the world’s factories would fall in a week, a minister said Taiwan is like Prague in 1938 facing Adolf Hitler; only if Taiwan remains free and democratic would the world be safe, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. The ministry on Saturday said Corriere della Sera is one of Italy’s oldest and most read newspapers, frequently covers European economic and political issues, and that Wu agreed to an interview with the paper’s senior political analyst Massimo Franco in Taipei on Jan. 3. The interview was published on Jan. 26 with the title “Taiwan like Prague in 1938 with Hitler,” the ministry