Several trade unions have pledged to lobby for better legal accountability for employers regarding work-related injuries.
New legislation is required to impose monetary damages on companies when their negligence leads to major workplace accidents, the Taiwan Association for Victims of Occupational Injuries said at a news conference on Thursday.
The amount imposed should be relative to company revenue, and executives should be subject to criminal sanction if injuries experienced by workers can be attributed to policies or orders, it said.
The Occupational Safety and Health Act (職業安全衛生法) and other laws have been used to penalize supervisors of injured workers, but generally those employees have no say in the policies that are often cause the injuries, association executive officer Liu Nien-yun (劉念雲) said.
“Bosses often escape responsibility,” she said in her call for legal reform.
Liu said that the lobbying effort was initiated by the association and has received backing from the Taiwan Railway Union and Taiwan International Workers Association, among others. Representatives of the groups attended the news conference to express their support.
The association plans to consult with trade unions across the country for their input into legal proposals, although it does not have a deadline.
It hopes the government takes the proposals seriously and incorporate them into law, Liu said.
The unions said that they doubt a new law set to take effect tomorrow would offer adequate protection to injured workers or better prevent workplace accidents.
The Labor Occupational Hazard Insurance and Protection Act (勞工職業災害保險及保護法) is to replace the Act for Protecting Workers from Occupational Accidents (職災勞工保護法) and other occupational insurance regulations.
The government has said the new law compels most companies, regardless of size, to hold insurance against liability for employee injury.
However, the groups said that the required insurance is minimal, even for those with poor records of work-related injuries.
Being able to inexpensively transfer liability for workplace incidents to the insurer — the Bureau of Labor Insurance — companies would have no incentive to prioritize employee health and safety, the association said.
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