The Taipei Department of Labor on Friday reminded employers to protect their workers’ “right to disconnect,” adding that companies should pay overtime if they send messages to employees after work.
The department last year was the first in the nation to release a set of guidelines for institutions regarding work-from-home labor conditions, in which it said employers should “respect workers’ right to disconnect.”
The “right to disconnect” is a worker’s right to not engage in work-related activities or communications by means of digital tools, such as e-mails or electronic messaging, during nonwork hours.
Photo: Fang Wei-chieh, Taipei Times
In a news conference on labor culture activities to be introduced in the coming months, Taipei Department of Labor Commissioner Kao Boa-hua (高寶華) was asked to elaborate on workers’ “right to disconnect.”
Kao said that department officials had traveled to Germany to better understand the concept before setting the administrative guidelines, under which employers or supervisors should not give work-related instructions to their employees after work hours.
“Even if they say in the message that it can be dealt with the next morning, it should still be counted as overtime work,” Kao said, adding that even if supervisors claim they did not ask the workers to read the message after work, the reality is that most workers would read it, and they might start thinking about how they should deal with it the next morning.
For example, if a person gets off work at 5pm and receives a message from their boss at 5:01pm assigning them work for the next morning, it should still be considered overtime work, and the worker can use communication logs as evidence to ask for overtime payment, he said.
Taipei Labor Standards Division head Hung San-kai (洪三凱) said that overtime work means asking workers to provide services during non-work hours, so if workers read the boss’ message, dealt with the issue, and replied, then a screenshot of the time they received the message and replied can be used as an attendance record.
However, Kao said the right to disconnect is not yet stipulated in law, so there are no direct corresponding penalties, but fines could be imposed under the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法).
Under the act, employers can be fined for not providing overtime payment, Hung said.
However, he added that there have not been any labor disputes associated with the “right to disconnect” since the guidelines were released in March last year.
“The guidelines serve more as guidance, reminding employers not to disturb employees after work,” he said.
CAUTION: Based on intelligence from the nation’s security agencies, MOFA has cautioned Taiwanese travelers about heightened safety risks in China-friendly countries The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday urged Taiwanese to be aware of their safety when traveling abroad, especially in countries that are friendly to China. China in June last year issued 22 guidelines that allow its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death so-called “diehard” Taiwanese independence activists, even though Chinese courts have no jurisdiction in Taiwan. Late last month, a senior Chinese official gave closed-door instructions to state security units to implement the guidelines in countries friendly to China, a government memo and a senior Taiwan security official said, based on information gathered by Taiwan’s intelligence agency. The
The National Immigration Agency (NIA) said yesterday that it will revoke the dependent-based residence permit of a Chinese social media influencer who reportedly “openly advocated for [China’s] unification through military force” with Taiwan. The Chinese national, identified by her surname Liu (劉), will have her residence permit revoked in accordance with Article 14 of the “Measures for the permission of family- based residence, long-term residence and settlement of people from the Mainland Area in the Taiwan Area,” the NIA said in a news release. The agency explained it received reports that Liu made “unifying Taiwan through military force” statements on her online
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said yesterday that it is looking to hire 8,000 people this year, at a time when the tech giant is expanding production capacity to maintain its lead over competitors. To attract talent, TSMC would launch a large-scale recruitment campaign on campuses across Taiwan, where a newly recruited engineer with a master’s degree could expect to receive an average salary of NT$2.2 million (US$60,912), which is much higher than the 2023 national average of NT$709,000 for those in the same category, according to government statistics. TSMC, which accounted for more than 60 percent
Tung Tzu-hsien (童子賢), a Taiwanese businessman and deputy convener of the nation’s National Climate Change Committee, said yesterday that “electrical power is national power” and nuclear energy is “very important to Taiwan.” Tung made the remarks, suggesting that his views do not align with the country’s current official policy of phasing out nuclear energy, at a forum organized by the Taiwan People’s Party titled “Challenges and Prospects of Taiwan’s AI Industry and Energy Policy.” “Taiwan is currently pursuing industries with high added- value and is developing vigorously, and this all requires electricity,” said the chairman
RSS