A coalition of more than 13 labor groups continued protests yesterday against the government's policy U-turn on the length of the workweek, saying labor rights are being sacrificed to the current political struggle.
Following the Executive Yuan's decision on Thursday to reverse a decision passed by the legislature, which reduced the maximum workweek to 84 hours in a fortnight, the groups have united to voice their strong opposition to the policy reversal.
Over a hundred labor rights advocates staged a demonstration at the Executive Yuan and the Legislative Yuan yesterday morning, trying to make their anger heard to the government.
Workweek policy has been a hot issue since the government, which had been seen as being labor-friendly, began pushing for a cut to the existing maximum workweek of 48 hours in June.
Originally, the Executive Yuan had reached a consensus with industry and labor groups to reduce the workweek to a maximum of 44-hours. However, when the Executive Yuan's proposal was sent to a vote in the legislature, the KMT, which holds a majority of seats, proposed the even more alluring 84-hours every fortnight and passed legislation to this effect on June 16.
According to the Constitution, the Executive Yuan can request that the legislature reconsider a bill which is difficult to implement. Nevertheless, the Executive Yuan did not take any action to reverse the legislature's 84-hour decision.
Defending its policy U-turn, the Executive Yuan has reasoned that a return to the 44-hour standard is necessary because the 84-hour decision has prompted a flood of companies to leave the country and added to Taiwan's economic slowdown.
However, the groups said that the root of Taiwan's economic problems is the political turmoil now enveloping the country, for which they claimed both the ruling party and the opposition are responsible. They said it is not fair to blame the reduction of the workweek for companies moving abroad or the economic slowdown.
Lin Hui-kuan (林惠官), president of the Chinese Federation of Labor (全國總工會), one of the three national labor unions in Taiwan, said before the Labor Standard Law was implemented in 1984, laborers were warned that the law would discourage industries from staying in the country and were told they would lose their jobs in the end. The prediction was proved false, but now the same threats are being made to the laborers over the workweek issue, he said.
"The political situation is apparently the source of the various economic problems, we can't accept the workweek issue being used as a scapegoat and laborers' rights being sacrificed," Lin said.
The groups insisted the Executive Yuan stick to the 84-hour decision, but they also suggested a possible scenario of concession.
They said if the Executive Yuan could have industries promise "to maintain their roots in Taiwan" (
UNITED: The premier said Trump’s tariff comments provided a great opportunity for the private and public sectors to come together to maintain the nation’s chip advantage The government is considering ways to assist the nation’s semiconductor industry or hosting collaborative projects with the private sector after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on chips exported to the US, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. Trump on Monday told Republican members of the US Congress about plans to impose sweeping tariffs on semiconductors, steel, aluminum, copper and pharmaceuticals “in the very near future.” “It’s time for the United States to return to the system that made us richer and more powerful than ever before,” Trump said at the Republican Issues Conference in Miami, Florida. “They
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
Taiwanese actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has died of pneumonia at the age of 48 while on a trip to Japan, where she contracted influenza during the Lunar New Year holiday, her sister confirmed today through an agent. "Our whole family came to Japan for a trip, and my dearest and most kindhearted sister Barbie Hsu died of influenza-induced pneumonia and unfortunately left us," Hsu's sister and talk show hostess Dee Hsu (徐熙娣) said. "I was grateful to be her sister in this life and that we got to care for and spend time with each other. I will always be grateful to
TAIWAN DEFENSE: The initiative would involve integrating various systems in a fast-paced manner through the use of common software to obstruct a Chinese invasion The first tranche of the US Navy’s “Replicator” initiative aimed at obstructing a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be ready by August, a US Naval Institute (USNI) News report on Tuesday said. The initiative is part of a larger defense strategy for Taiwan, and would involve launching thousands of uncrewed submarines, surface vessels and aerial vehicles around Taiwan to buy the nation and its partners time to assemble a response. The plan was first made public by the Washington Post in June last year, when it cited comments by US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue
RSS