The Executive Yuan has approved a graveyard shift allowance for field officers at police stations and fire stations, immigration workers and National Airborne Service Corps personnel, Minister of the Interior Lin Yu-chang (林右昌) said yesterday.
Lin said their jobs require long hours, plenty of labor and are dangerous, especially during the graveyard shift, when it is harder to see their surroundings.
Starting from June 1, hourly bonus pay of NT$100 would be offered to field officers on patrol, or working in the rescue and emergency medical services, as well as those doing crackdown, seizure, inspection and examination work between 12am to 6am, he said.
Photo: Taipei Times
The estimated total budget is about NT$1 billion each year, which is to be allocated by the ministry, he said.
About 69,000 field officers are expected to benefit from the policy, Lin said.
The ministry would continue to improve their equipment, and work conditions and care mechanisms, so they can feel safe doing their duties, he added.
Photo courtesy of the Labor Struggle
In other developments, Labor Struggle, a coalition of labor unions and student groups, called on the incoming Cabinet to meet three demands: raise the overtime pay rate, which has not been adjusted for 40 years; restore national holidays that have been canceled; and conduct a comprehensive review of the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) to improve employees’ working conditions.
GDP per capita increased 119.5 percent between 2000 and 2022, but real wages only grew by 9.8 percent, the coalition said, citing data from the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics.
Companies make employees “work overtime” and take on more work instead of hiring more people, it said.
The economy is growing, but is facing a labor shortage, so the government should raise the overtime pay rate to make profit distribution fairer and more reasonable, the coalition said.
Compensatory leave for working overtime should also be proportional to the overtime pay rate instead of exchanging overtime hours for compensatory leave hours, they said.
The Taoyuan Confederation of Trade Unions urged the new Cabinet to amend laws regarding national holidays or draft a new act to increase the number of national holidays.
Average working hours per year in Taiwan are higher than those in Japan and South Korea, but there are only 12 national holidays, compared with Japan’s 16 days and South Korea’s 15 days, the group said, citing Ministry of Labor data.
The ministry said that a comprehensive review on the Memorial Days and Holidays Act (紀念日及節日實施辦法) needs to be conducted to find out whether the number of national holidays can be increased.
As for the other suggestions, the ministry said laws would need to be amended and might have wide-ranging effects, so it would continue to collect opinions from industries to form a consensus.
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