The Legislative Yuan yesterday passed amendments to the Civil Service Protection Act (公務人員保障法) that clearly define, set penalties and improve complaint handling procedures for workplace bullying in government agencies.
The amendments define workplace bullying as behavior by personnel within the same agency who use power, influence or opportunity to harass or abuse someone.
Bullying can include repeated threats, insults, discrimination, humiliation, isolation or any other hostile, coercive or offensive conduct that leads to a hostile work environment harmful to the physical or mental health of civil servants, the amendments say.
Photo: CNA
In severe cases, the bullying does not need to be ongoing.
Under the amendments, the time limit for filing complaints has been set at five years for cases involving the misuse of power and three years for those that do not.
If a senior official or department head is found guilty of workplace bullying, they would face a fine of NT$500,000 to NT$1 million (US$16,928 to US$33,857), the amendments say.
If the death of a civil servant occurs due to failure to implement appropriate health and safety protection measures, the person responsible would face a sentence of seven years in prison and a fine of up to NT$2 million.
Any retaliatory or unreasonable treatment against civil servants who suggest improvements to health and safety measures, or who file workplace bullying complaints, would result in fines ranging from NT$30,000 to NT$75,000, which could be imposed repeatedly.
Those made aware of instances of workplace bullying who fail to take effective measures to stop it, or who fail to implement the legally required health and safety protections within a set deadline after official notification, would face a fine of NT$30,000 to NT$1.5 million.
If failure to provide appropriate safety and health protections results in a major disaster, meaning three deaths or more, the person responsible would face three years in prison, detention or a fine of up to NT$1 million.
The amendments would also improve complaint and incident handling procedures, as the Civil Service Protection and Training Commission would be required to convene a health and safety incident review panel to handle investigations and decide on penalties. The panel would consist of five to seven academics or experts.
Under the amendments, the commission could inspect or instruct higher-level agencies to inspect any institution reported to have improper or inadequate health and safety protections, or workplace bullying prevention measures.
If any contraventions are found, the agency must be informed and given a deadline to make improvements. If it fails to do so, the issue would be handled based on the severity of the infraction, the amendments say.
The amendments would take effect six months from their promulgation.
Additional reporting by CNA
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
RSS