New Power Party (NPP) lawmakers yesterday named Nan Shan Life Insurance Co and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) as among the nation’s top enterprises most fined for contraventions of labor law, in a call for stronger legal protections for workers’ rights.
Taiwan must enhance penalties for enterprises that contravene the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法), NPP legislators and representatives of the Taoyuan Confederation of Trade Unions told a news conference at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei, citing Ministry of Labor data.
Nan Shan Life Insurance topped the list after receiving labor rule violation fines of NT$17 million (US$532,448), an amount that nearly equaled the sum of the next nine companies’ fines combined, NPP Legislator Chiu Hsien-chih (邱顯智) said.
Photo courtesy of the New Power Party caucus
This behavior “suggests the company believes it is above the law,” Chiu said.
Carrefour Taiwan, which frequently appeared in previous editions of this ranking, incurred fines worth NT$4.34 million in connection to labor rule violations, making it the second-worst this year, Chiu said.
TSMC was the next-worst employer on the list, having been fined NT$2 million last year, he said.
Breaking rules on overtime pay, illegal overtime practices and failing to comply with work-hour regulations are the three most common labor regulation violations, Chiu cited ministry data as showing.
The manufacturing, retail, hospitality and restaurant, transportation and warehouse industries were the most prolific breakers of work hours and overtime regulations, he said.
Labor law stipulates that enterprises that contravene labor regulations can be fined up to NT$1 million, which offers no deterrence, he said.
The NPP caucus has proposed amendments to the labor law that would triple the fines for non-compliance to ensure the dignity of labor is upheld in Taiwan, he said.
The remainder of the rule-breaking enterprises were Taoyuan Bus, Zhinan Bus Co, Hualien Passenger Transport Co, Kuang-Hua Bus Co, United Highway Bus Co and Grape King Bio Ltd, union chief executive officer Chu Mei-hsueh (朱梅雪) said.
This means six out of 10 of Taiwan’s employers with the worst labor records are from the transportation industry, she said, adding that there is hardly ever a year that goes by without the bus companies being caught committing wage theft, illegal overtime practices or overworking employees.
The industry “takes subsidies in one hand and pays fines out the other,” she said.
The nation’s shortage of labor inspectors — many of whom are working longer hours than legally allowed and being underpaid like the workers they were supposed to protect — shows that the Ministry of Labor has some labor standards problems itself, Chu said.
The ministry has a shortage of inspectors and is largely under-resourced at the local level, she said.
NPP Legislator Chen Jiau-hua (陳椒華), who presented a list of construction companies with the highest number of Occupational Safety and Health Act (職業安全衛生法, OSHA) violations, said all entities on her list were construction companies.
The worst offender of the group was Kuocheng Construction (國城營造), which was fined 69 times for a total of NT$5.56 million, she said.
This figure averaged out to six OSHA breaches per month, and the ministry’s heaviest penalties seems to have no effect on the company’s behavior, Chen said.
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