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Despair in store for
Taiwan’s workers
By Chang Feng-yi 張烽益
At a time when workers are worried about being forced to take leave without pay,
the government lobbed a bomb into the labor market, saying it is thinking about
legalizing the practice. Capitalists have long gotten away with this tactic
although the practice is in violation of the labor law. Now the government is
even trying to take away that safeguard.
How have capitalists been able to get away with treating labor laws as if they
do not exist?
For these laws to be implemented properly, the government needs to have both the
resolve and the manpower to enforce them. Unfortunately, Taiwan has Premier Wu
Den-yih (吳敦義), who has said that whoever invented unpaid leave deserves a Nobel
prize, and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who half-heartedly pleaded with the
heads of the companies at the Hsinchu Science Park not to violate the law.
Having the government say it will legislate the practice of unpaid leave is just
sugarcoating a very bitter pill that Taiwanese workers are being made to
swallow.”
Codifying the practice into law will not prevent companies from abusing unpaid
leave, which goes against the very spirit of the labor law and will add to
workers’ worries over job security, like they did during the financial crisis of
2008 and 2009.
What is it about legalizing unpaid leave that has drawn strong opposition from
labor rights groups?
Everlight Electronics, a leading LED manufacturer, in October attempted to get
its employees to take unpaid leave. Although the government intervened and
persuaded it to cancel the plan, this incident demonstrated one thing:
Capitalists in this country — who should be entirely responsible for their
companies’ operating costs — are quite prepared to let their own employees
shoulder the burden when the going gets tough.
If it had not been for the government’s intervention, the heads of companies
nationwide would have followed suit and that would have opened the floodgates:
Everyone would be calling on their workers to take unpaid leave. It is precisely
for this reason that unpaid leave is illegal.
The labor law includes provisions for extending unemployment benefits and wage
subsidies, but the qualifying thresholds are set so high that workers know they
have little chance of ever achieving them.
After 2008, the Council of Labor Affairs also offered a cumulative salary
subsidy as an incentive to keep workers in unpopular jobs, but regulations
prohibiting the abuse of unpaid leave were still not enforced.
Clearly, the government was satisfied that the labor market would not revisit
the woes of the 2008 financial crisis and took a rather indifferent attitude
when it came to the difficulties faced by workers in this country. The result is
a feeling of fear and hopelessness among workers.
How long are workers to be subjected to the arbitrary application of labor
regulations by capitalists and the government’s indifference to addressing the
problem?
Working conditions in the country are getting worse by the day: Working hours
are going up, not down, and wages have stagnated and are even starting to fall.
All of this is a result of the government being soft on big business and
corporate interests.
If Ma fails to come up with an effective economic stimulus package or refuses to
address workers’ concerns, things are going to be very tough for average
Taiwanese in the future.
Chang Feng-yi is executive director of the Taiwan Labor and Social Policy
Research Association.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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