The Legislative Yuan yesterday passed amendments to a gender equality law that aim to better protect the rights and interests of victims of sexual harassment in the workplace.
The revisions to the Act of Gender Equality in Employment (性別工作平等法) follow the passage of a similar bill last week involving harassment in educational settings, and comes amid a #MeToo movement in Taiwan spurred by accusations of sexual misconduct against a range of public figures.
The amended law stipulates that when serious workplace harassment allegations are made against a person in a position of authority, the company must place them on leave or move them to another role during the investigation.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
If the allegations are proven true and are of a certain severity, the company is required to terminate the offender’s work contract within 30 days after the investigation has ended.
In addition to conducting an internal probe, companies are required to report sexual harassment complaints and the results of their investigations to their local city or county labor department.
In cases where the victim does not accept the results of the company’s probe, they would be allowed to file an appeal with the labor department, the amended law states.
The revisions also require companies with between 10 and 29 employees to set up a sexual harassment reporting mechanism, expanding on rules applicable only to companies with 30 or more employees.
Under the amended law, companies that are found to have been aware of sexual harassment complaints, but failed to take corrective measures face a fine of NT$20,000 to NT$1 million (US$636 to US$31,817).
If the owner or person in charge of a company is themselves found guilty of harassment, they can be fined NT$10,000 to NT$1 million by local labor authorities.
Regarding civil compensation, the amendments would require courts to award workplace harassment victims two to three times more than the assessed damages if the offender was in a position of power, and three to five times more if the offender is the head or owner of the company.
However, as the changes would require staffing and budgetary adjustments by companies and local governments, some of the amendments approved yesterday would only take effect on March 8 next year.
The legislature yesterday also passed amendments to the Sexual Harassment Prevention Act (性騷擾防治法), which, among other things, would set the fine for those found guilty of exposing the personal data or other identifying information of a sexual harassment victim at NT$60,000 to NT$600,000.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
Taiwan plans to cull as many as 120,000 invasive green iguanas this year to curb the species’ impact on local farmers, the Ministry of Agriculture said. Chiu Kuo-hao (邱國皓), a section chief in the ministry’s Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency, on Sunday said that green iguanas have been recorded across southern Taiwan and as far north as Taichung. Although there is no reliable data on the species’ total population in the country, it has been estimated to be about 200,000, he said. Chiu said about 70,000 iguanas were culled last year, including about 45,000 in Pingtung County, 12,000 in Tainan, 9,900 in
RSS