Labor laws should be amended to allow civil servants to unionize and protect the rights of employees to disconnect from work after hours, the Taipei-based Chinese Federation of Labor (CFL) said yesterday.
The federation issued the call following the report of a recent suicide by a worker surnamed Wu (吳) at the northern regional office of the Ministry of Labor’s Work Development Agency, allegedly following bullying by branch director Hsieh Yi-jung (謝宜容).
Hsieh was also accused of sending work instructions to subordinates between 1am and 5am and demanding an immediate reply.
Photo: CNA
The federation told a news conference in Taipei yesterday that previously civil servants were only able to organize under the Civil Servant Association Act (公務人員協會法), which prevented them from asserting their labor rights.
The Labor Union Act (工會法) should be reviewed and amended, relaxing the minimum member requirement to form a union and ensuring that all workers have the right to organize, the right to collective bargaining and the right to strike, it said.
The Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) should also be amended to include the right of workers to disconnect from work after hours, it added.
Employees have the right to refuse work-related communications outside of working hours, and supervisors should not treat employees unfavorably as a result, the federation said.
More than 20 countries and regions, including Spain, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Ireland, Canada and Australia, have already passed policies protecting workers’ rights to disconnect from work after hours, it added.
Taiwan should strive to be the first country in Asia to implement legislation protecting workers’ right to disconnect, the federation said.
The federation, the oldest and largest labor union in Taiwan, has developed a hotline for workers to report complaints at (04) 2265-5695, CFL secretary-general Wen Tsung-yu (?宗諭) said.
Separately, a group of public sector organizations held a newsconference outside the Executive Yuan yesterday, saying that 17 civil servants have died in work-related incidents this year, including firefighters, police, clerks and Wu.
The organizations demanded that civil servants be included in the Occupational Safety and Health Act (職業安全衛生法) and allowed to form unions.
They also demanded that workplace bullying prevention be further integrated into law by strengthening its definition and increasing external complaint channels.
Additional reporting by Chu
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
RSS