Labor activists yesterday criticized an announcement by the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) that workers “should” be compensated if they can’t make it to work on a typhoon day, saying the council’s suggestion would not be enough to protect workers’ rights.
The CLA on Friday announced that on typhoon days, when local governments declare schools and government offices closed, employers “should” pay the day’s salary to workers in the private sector who stay home.
The council said that because typhoons are not the fault of employers, they should not be required by law to take responsibility for paying workers who cannot make it to work. However, the council encouraged companies to value workers’ rights and “sympathize” with them by paying them the day’s salary if they can’t make it to work, or provide extra compensation and other benefits such as transportation if they do go to work.
Youth Labor Union 95 executive member Liou You-shine (劉侑學) yesterday panned the CLA for not making paid typhoon leave a mandatory requirement.
“Administrative instructions are only suggestions. The council’s stance on the issue [of typhoon leave] is still unclear,” he said. “A worker’s life has been lost, and in exchange, workers only get a vague labor policy.”
Liou was referring to the death of a part-time worker on Sept. 29 last year. The 19-year-old was killed when an electric cable that had come loose from strong winds during a typhoon wrapped around his neck. The worker, surnamed Tung (董), was riding his scooter home from work on a typhoon day.
Youth Labor Union 95 said that when the Central Personnel Administration announces a typhoon day, workers should not be expected to show up to work, but if a worker chooses to show up, then he or she should be given double compensation.
The Labor Standards Act (勞動基本法) currently stipulates that in the event of a typhoon or other natural disaster, an employee who originally had the day off and is called in to work is entitled to double pay and time off in lieu.
However, if the employee was scheduled to be on duty and could not get to work because of poor weather conditions, the employer is not required to pay any wage because there is no “typhoon leave,” the law says.
While some private companies allow workers to take paid leave during typhoons, this is discretionary, not a right.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its