Labor and women’s rights activists yesterday panned the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) for its decision to allow an employer to declare maternity leave for female employees as unpaid leave.
The controversy came as local media reports exposed a reply that the CLA had made to a woman who recently filed a complaint about her employer for declaring her two-month maternity leave as unpaid leave and paid her the legal minimum monthly salary of a little over NT$17,000 (US$488).
The CLA said in the reply that the employer did not violate the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法), which requires employers to grant female employees eight weeks of leave after giving birth and pay them their full salary if they have worked for the company for more than six months or half if they have worked there for less than six months.
Taiwan Labor Front secretary-general Son Yu-lian (孫友聯) said he disagreed with the CLA’s interpretation of law.
“The CLA’s interpretation is a catastrophe for all female workers,” Son said in a telephone interview yesterday.
“As the government institution defending laborers’ rights, the CLA should distinguish parental leave from unpaid leave,” he said. “The CLA’s statement set a very bad precedent that disables the protection granted to female workers in the Labor Standards Act and the Act for Gender Equality in Employment [性別工作平等法].”
National Union of Taiwan Women’s Associations secretary-general Ho Pi-chen (何碧珍) said that unpaid leave and maternity leave should be separated, “because allowing unpaid leave is a temporary measure that the CLA came up with to help employers amid the global economic crisis.”
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Huang Sue-ying (黃淑英), who was a long-time women’s rights activist before becoming a lawmaker, said she would wait to look into details on the case to decide whether the CLA’s decision was appropriate.
“It’s not a problem [for an employer to pay the minimum wage to an employee on maternity leave] if they’ve reached an agreement on a long-term reduction of salaries,” she said. “But the employer should pay the full salary if unpaid leave is only a temporary measure announced unilaterally by the employer for the economic crisis.”
In response, Sun Bi-shia (孫碧霞), director of the CLA’s Department of Labor Standards, said the council “provided an explanation to the woman’s employer about the specific case.”
The council was not issuing an official letter to interpret related articles in the Labor Standards Act, she said.
“During maternity leave, the worker is not obligated to work, therefore, the employer should not be able to put the worker on unpaid leave,” CLA Minister Jennifer Wang (王如玄) said.
The council also reiterated that during periods of unpaid leave, the standard minimum monthly wage of NT$17,280 still applied.
Additional reporting by Shelley Huang
Hong Kong-based American singer-songwriter Khalil Fong (方大同) has passed away at the age of 41, Fong’s record label confirmed yesterday. “With unwavering optimism in the face of a relentless illness for five years, Khalil Fong gently and gracefully bid farewell to this world on the morning of February 21, 2025, stepping into the next realm of existence to carry forward his purpose and dreams,” Fu Music wrote on the company’s official Facebook page. “The music and graphic novels he gifted to the world remain an eternal testament to his luminous spirit, a timeless treasure for generations to come,” it said. Although Fong’s
China’s military buildup in the southern portion of the first island chain poses a serious threat to Taiwan’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply, a defense analyst warned. Writing in a bulletin on the National Defense and Security Research’s Web site on Thursday, Huang Tsung-ting (黃宗鼎) said that China might choke off Taiwan’s energy supply without it. Beginning last year, China entrenched its position in the southern region of the first island chain, often with Russia’s active support, he said. In May of the same year, a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) force consisting of a Type 054A destroyer, Type 055 destroyer,
Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) was questioned by prosecutors for allegedly orchestrating an attack on a taxi driver after he was allegedly driven on a longer than necessary route in a car he disliked. The questioning at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office was ongoing as of press time last night. Police have recommended charges of attempted murder. The legally embattled actor — known for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代) — is under a separate investigation for allegedly using fake medical documents to evade mandatory military service. According to local media reports, police said Wang earlier last year ordered a
Taiwan is planning to expand the use of artificial intelligence (AI)-based X-ray imaging to customs clearance points over the next four years to curb the smuggling of contraband, a Customs Administration official said. The official on condition of anonymity said the plan would cover meat products, e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products, large bundles of banknotes and certain agricultural produce. Taiwan began using AI image recognition systems in July 2021. This year, generative AI — a subset of AI which uses generative models to produce data — would be used to train AI models to produce realistic X-ray images of contraband, the official