A draft bill designed to prevent sudden mass layoffs and oblige employers to negotiate with laid-off staff, passed its first reading in the legislature's Sanitation, Envi-ronment and Social Welfare Com-mittee yesterday.
The Council of Labor Affairs and DPP Legislator Lai Chin-lin (賴勁麟) both sponsored draft legislation to address problems created by companies suddenly shutting down and leaving their employees without any compensation.
The committee combined the two proposals into a "mass layoff status" bill.
The bill would require companies wishing to layoff substantial numbers of employees to submit a plan both to the CLA and the labor affairs departments of local governments 50 days in advance or faces fines ranging from NT$100,000 to NT$500,000.
The dismissal plan would have to detail the dates and reasons for the layoffs, the company departments involved and the number of employees affected.
The legislation would require the labor department of the relevant local government to mediate between the company and its employees. It stipulates that companies who refuse to negotiate would face fines ranging from NT$ 30,000 to NT$150,000.
From January to October this year, about 250,000 people lost their jobs because of a company's closure or restructuring -- accounting for almost half of the 520,000 people now listed as unemployed. More than 2,000 people are currently involved in disputes over layoffs.
Taiwan is stepping up plans to create self-sufficient supply chains for combat drones and increase foreign orders from the US to counter China’s numerical superiority, a defense official said on Saturday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said the nation’s armed forces are in agreement with US Admiral Samuel Paparo’s assessment that Taiwan’s military must be prepared to turn the nation’s waters into a “hellscape” for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Paparo, the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, reiterated the concept during a Congressional hearing in Washington on Wednesday. He first coined the term in a security conference last
A magnitude 4.3 earthquake struck eastern Taiwan's Hualien County at 8:31am today, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). The epicenter of the temblor was located in Hualien County, about 70.3 kilometers south southwest of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 23.2km, according to the administration. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County, where it measured 3 on Taiwan's 7-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 2 in Hualien and Nantou counties, the CWA said.
The Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC) yesterday announced a fundraising campaign to support survivors of the magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Myanmar on March 28, with two prayer events scheduled in Taipei and Taichung later this week. “While initial rescue operations have concluded [in Myanmar], many survivors are now facing increasingly difficult living conditions,” OCAC Minister Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青) told a news conference in Taipei. The fundraising campaign, which runs through May 31, is focused on supporting the reconstruction of damaged overseas compatriot schools, assisting students from Myanmar in Taiwan, and providing essential items, such as drinking water, food and medical supplies,
New Party Deputy Secretary-General You Chih-pin (游智彬) this morning went to the National Immigration Agency (NIA) to “turn himself in” after being notified that he had failed to provide proof of having renounced his Chinese household registration. He was one of more than 10,000 naturalized Taiwanese citizens from China who were informed by the NIA that their Taiwanese citizenship might be revoked if they fail to provide the proof in three months, people familiar with the matter said. You said he has proof that he had renounced his Chinese household registration and demanded the NIA provide proof that he still had Chinese