MISSED COMMITMENTS:An official cited a 1987 legal interpretation that requires employees to take leave if they promise to work on their day off, but do not
Taipei Times
Date: Jan 04, 2017
By: Sean Lin / Staff reporter
The “one fixed day off and one flexible rest day” regulation is full of loopholes that employers have used
Labor rights advocates protest outside the Ministry of Labor in Taipei yesterday against loopholes in the “one fixed day off, one flexible rest day” policy. Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
to exploit workers since the policy took effect less than two weeks ago, unions said yesterday.
A coalition of workers’ unions staged a protest in front of the Ministry of Labor in Taipei, demanding that the ministry address loopholes in the scheme that have caused workers’ leave time and overtime pay to be cut.
President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration has said that if people are willing to work on their “rest days,” they would receive more overtime pay under the new rules, which employers have exploited to deny workers overtime pay, instead giving them compensatory leave, Workers’ Struggle Alliance member Kuo Kuan-chun (郭冠均) said.
Overtime pay on rest days should be 1.33 times hourly wages for the first two hours of work and 1.67 times from the third to eighth hour of work, an average of 1.57 times daily wages, Kuo said, adding that if employers want to trade overtime for compensatory leave, they should grant workers 1.57 days. FULL STORY]
