The Taipei Market Administration Office yesterday ordered firings at Taipei Agricultural Products Manufacturing Co after it ruled that the employment of five workers was illegal.
The recruitment of the five was in breach of Article 28 of the Agricultural Wholesale Market Management Regulation (農產品批發市場管理辦法), which bars the firm — which is partly state-administered — from hiring employees who are within the third degree of consanguinity of its general manager, directors or other managerial staff.
“The Taipei City Government has requested government-appointed directors to present a motion at tomorrow’s [today’s] board of directors meeting to ascertain company general manager Han Kuo-yu’s (韓國瑜) accountability in the matter,” the office said in a statement.
The firm is to elect a new president today, the outcome of which will determine whether company general manager Han will be allowed to complete his term, which ends in June.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City Councilor Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) on Friday last week accused Han, a member of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), of allowing nepotism in the firm.
The five employees ruled to have been illegally hired include a son, daughter-in-law and two nephews of acting president Chen Yi-tsung (陳益宗), as well as the firm’s international marketing division head, who is a son-in-law of company director Tu Hsiu-ying (涂秀英).
The office sent personnel to the firm in an unsuccessful attempt to ascertain whether there are other employees in the same situation as the five identified.
The firm handed the agency an employee roster that listed the five employees Liang named last week, office division chief Kao Cheng-hsiang (高振翔) said.
The agency fined Taipei Agricultural Products Manufacturing NT$50,000 (US$1,571) for its failure to reply to a request to provide information regarding possible illegalities in its staffing, Kao said.
The firm would be fined that amount every day until it provides the office with the information it has requested, he said.
The firm is to request a constitutional interpretation to verify whether the article breached people’s right to work, Taipei Agricultural Products Manufacturing said, adding that it would consult lawyers about whether to file a lawsuit against the municipal government.
However, Liang said “a constitutional interpretation would be irrelevant,” and added: “They can try” when asked about the possibility of a lawsuit.
DPP Taipei City Councilor Wang Wei-chung (王威中) said the firm was unable to prevent nepotism.
Office director Hseu Hsyuan-mou (許玄謀) should resign if Han is not dismissed by the end of next month, Wang said.
Wang said Han was remiss in paying employees a combined NT$77 million in bonuses this year, more than half the firm’s net worth.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
BACK TO WINTER: A strong continental cold air mass would move south on Tuesday next week, bringing colder temperatures to northern and central Taiwan A tropical depression east of the Philippines could soon be upgraded to be the first tropical storm of this year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday, adding that the next cold air mass is forecast to arrive on Monday next week. CWA forecaster Cheng Jie-ren (鄭傑仁) said the first tropical depression of this year is over waters east of the Philippines, about 1,867km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), and could strengthen into Tropical Storm Nokaen by early today. The system is moving slowly from northwest to north, and is expected to remain east of the Philippines with little chance of affecting Taiwan,
RSS