Chinese-language teachers from National Taiwan Normal University’s (NTNU) Mandarin Training Center (MTC) yesterday protested outside the school to demand better labor rights and protections.
Of the center’s 90 language instructors, 73 have joined a labor union that is demanding a collective bargaining process with the university.
The union has made four requests of NTNU — compliance with labor laws, stable employment contracts, better institutional transparency and reasonable employment benefits.
Photo: Yang Mien-chieh, Taipei Times
The Taiwan Higher Education Union and MTC faculty members held a news conference to release a draft agreement to be negotiated with the university.
The MTC only offers its teachers three-month contracts, leaving them worried that they might not have a job at the end of each term, MTC language instructor Du Kai (杜愷) said.
The teachers are therefore also not guaranteed provisions granted under the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法), including sick leave, bereavement leave, marital leave and parental leave, Du said.
When teachers take sick days, they often have to pay the hourly teaching rate for substitute teachers out of their own pocket, he said.
The Ministry of Labor in October 2024 confirmed that the MTC was subject to the act, but the center has yet to improve labor conditions for its teachers, Taiwan Higher Education Union secretary-general Chang Chih-lun (張志綸) said.
The union in January sent a letter to NTNU requesting the start of collective bargaining and it hopes the university would initiate the process soon, he said.
NTNU said that, according to the Collective Agreement Act (團體協約法) and procedures set by the Ministry of Education, it must first verify whether the union meets the legal qualifications for negotiation before starting the process.
The university has followed instructions from the education and labor ministries, as well as the Taipei City Department of Labor, it said.
It has further established an interdepartmental task force to review the union’s draft and would consider the needs of teachers, students’ right to education, financial feasibility and the stability of teaching operations before making any changes, it said.
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