Money repaid by workers before 2012 in line with the then-Council of Labor Affairs’ request at the time will be returned in view of the latest High Administrative Court ruling against the government in its bid to recoup loans paid to factory workers in the 1990s when their employers went bust, Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) said yesterday.
The case dates back to the 1990s, when more than 1,000 workers were laid off without severance or retirement pay.
The government established a job security fund to issue loans defined as re-employment assistance for the workers.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
To recover unpaid loans, the then-Council of Labor Affairs filed lawsuits in 2012 against loan recipients who had not repaid the debts, sparking anger among displaced workers, their supporters and activists, who have staged highly visible protests over the past year.
On March 7, the court ruled against the ministry, saying the loans were, in effect, compensation to the laid-off workers. It also found that the deadline for the government to pursue the matter — January 2006 — had long passed.
On Monday, the ministry said that it would not appeal the ruling, adding that it will drop similar cases against other former factory workers and that those who have repaid the loans will have their money returned.
Payments would also be returned to former workers who paid off the loans before 2012, Jiang said yesterday when answering questions from Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lu Yu-ling (呂玉玲) at the Legislative Yuan.
Jiang said the decision to return the money to workers who were “more law-abiding” was made on Thursday night, on the principles of equality.
“Workers who were more law-abiding and returned the funds early should not have to suffer different treatment,” he said.
Meanwhile, Minister of Labor Pan Shih-wei (潘世偉) said the Ministry of Labor was leaning toward paying back the funds through the Employment Security Fund, but that the decision depends on the results of an Employment Security Fund management committee meeting.
Pan said that the ministry still considered the loans as such and not subrogation payments, meaning the government is not responsible for claims against the shuttered businesses.
Pan added that since the statute of limitations had expired, trying to reclaim the funds would be unlawful.
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
RSS