New Power Party Legislator Hung Tzu-yung (洪慈庸) yesterday asked the Ministry of Labor whether it was capable of detecting seemingly obvious illegal working conditions for nurses at New Taipei City’s Far Eastern Memorial Hospital.
A netizen claiming to be a nurse at the hospital recently said that nurses at the hospital are forced to comply with illegal conditions.
At the Legislative Yuan yesterday morning, Hung said after learning about the conditions regarding “negative duty hours” and “repaying the hospital for taking days off” that nurses face, she asked the ministry on June 20 to conduct an ad hoc labor inspection of the hospital.
Hung showed a letter that she said proved that complaints about the labor conditions are true.
According to Hung, the letter said hospital superintendent Lin Fang-yue (林芳郁) on June 26 told staff that the “negative duty hours” and “repaying salary for taking day off” are problems that have been part of the system for years, but the hospital has a schedule to gradually eliminate them.
The New Taipei City Department of Labor Affairs has made 13 inspections at the hospital in the past three years, but detected no illegal conditions, Hung said.
“The negative duty hours should not be a difficult problem to find, so do labor inspectors lack experience, or are they hiding something?” she said.
The ministry should explain why it has not inspected the hospital or imposed penalties on it, she said.
Taiwan Medical Alliance for Labor Justice deputy director-general Lin Ping-hung (林秉鴻) said the alliance has received several reports of similar conditions, with some nurses reporting that the “one fixed day off, one flexible rest day” labor regulations made conditions worse.
Sometimes when nurses arrive at work, they are asked to leave and take the day off because there are not enough patients for them to take care of, and if they do not have annual leave to use, the hospital makes them forfeit salary for the forced day off, Lin Ping-hung said.
In addition, “negative duty hours” can be used for overtime, but nurses do not get extra overtime pay for working on weekends or holidays, while they are often asked to be on standby, which are not considered work hours, he said.
Ministry of Labor official Liu Yue-Se (劉約瑟) said that the New Taipei City Department of Labor Affairs had conducted an inspection of 10 hospitals in the city, including Far Eastern Memorial, and it would make the results public soon.
REASONS FOR TRAVEL: An assistant professor said that proposed amendments to penalize drivers if they used drugs overseas would not deter people from traveling People who operate a motor vehicle under the influence of marijuana would have their driver’s license revoked, even if they used the substance while overseas, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday, citing proposed amendments to the Road Traffic Management and Penalty Act (道路交通管理處罰條例). The amendments would also authorize the government to revoke the licenses of people determined to have used Category 1 or Category 2 narcotics, even if they were not operating a vehicle while under the influence of drugs, as well as ban them from taking the license test for three years, the ministry said. People aged 18 or
GLOBALGIVING: ‘ Caving to external pressure is not acceptable for an organization that has cultivated justice reform and human rights for 30 years,’ one NGO said A slew of non-government organizations (NGOs) have withdrawn from the GlobalGiving fundraising platform after it announced it would use “Chinese Taipei” instead of “Taiwan” from next month. The Taiwan Good Rice Association wrote on Facebook on Friday that it was informed on April 28 via a teleconference call of the change, which was made because the platform wanted to operate in China. Taiwan Good Rice is to terminate all cooperative relationships with GlobalGiving in response to the platform’s “unilateral and non-negotiable” decision to remove references to Taiwan, the NGO said. “Taiwan is in the official name of Taiwan Good Rice Association and the
HEAVY WEATHER: Typhoon Jangmi is due to crash straight into the Ryukyus as airlines look to shift flights to larger aircraft or cancel flights to Okinawa entirely Taiwan’s international air carriers announced flight adjustments over the weekend as Typhoon Jangmi is forecast to hit the Ryukyu Islands today and tomorrow. The Central Weather Administration (CWA) upgraded Jangmi from a tropical storm to a typhoon at 8am yesterday, with the eye located 580km south of Naha city. It was moving north at 19kph. Today, China Airlines’ CI-120, CI-121, CI-122 and CI-123 flights between Taoyuan and Naha, Okinawa, have been canceled as well as CI-132 and CI-133 between Kaohsiung and Naha. EVA Air’s BR-112, BR-113, BR-186 and BR-185 flights between Taoyuan and Naha are also canceled. Low-cost carrier Tigerair Taiwan canceled IT-230,
UPGRADE: The Kang Ding-class frigate is replacing its Chaparall missiles with Tien Chien II and Hua Yang VLS, which would provide it with long-range, 360° air defense Taiwan plans to produce 1,200 to 1,376 Hai Chien II missiles (海劍二, Sea Sword II) — also known as TC-2N — to serve as the standard air defense system of the navy’s surface combatant fleet, a source said yesterday. Last week, the Hai Chien II, the naval version of the Tien Kung II missile (天劍二, Sky Sword II), completed a live-fire test in waters off the National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology’s Jiupeng facility (九鵬) in Pingtung County’s Manjhou Township (滿州). The MIM72 Chaparral and other dated air defense missiles that currently arm Taiwanese ships have inadequate range to combat Chinese
RSS