More than 70 migrant workers, led by a non-governmental organization fighting for improved labor rights, staged protests outside Taiwan’s Legislation Yuan and the Ministry of Labor in an effort to prevent the passage of amendments to the controversial five-day-workweek policy.
Some members of labor groups also started a rally featuring a hunger strike outside the Labor Ministry on Monday, demanding the resignation of Minister Lin Mei-chu, Taiwan Times reported.
Previously the government, in order to implement the controversial five-day-week policy, under which workers were supposed to be provided one leave day for every six consecutive workdays, took away seven public holidays to which they had been entitled.
Zhuang Shu-qing of the Migrants Empowerment Network in Taiwan (MENT) said workers could be exploited if the proposed “flexible working hours”, which involved loosening the requirement of providing workers one day off for every six consecutive workdays, and increasing maximum monthly working hours, were allowed to pass.
The government had given its assurance that the loosened policies would first have to be mutually agreed by both employer representatives and their labor counterparts before going into effect.
Zhuang argued that blue-collar workers were often left with no choice but to accept every term laid out by their employers as they lacked the bargaining power to negotiate for their rights, given language barriers, insufficient information and the absence of the legal right to change their jobs.
The draft amendment in question, for instance, was only available in Chinese, but not in any of the migrant workers’ native languages, added Zhuang, who was worried that if it were passed it would “legalize” the forcing of vulnerable workers to work overtime by inhumane employers.
Jian Chang-jung, also from MENT, said 660,000 migrant workers would become the latest victims of Taiwan labor law if the amendment went through. He urged the government to take the responsibility of supervising or facilitating employer-employee meetings instead of leaving the two parties to reach a fake consensus.
Please,,approud that palicy for the seek ofworkers..
You like it take it … don’t like it Leave it.!!
correct your English grammar pls.
Totoo naman kc na batas nila para lang sa kapwa Taiwanese nila ang mga foreign workers laging d kasama sa mga magagandang policy ng taiwan government. Dapat patas. Mas maraming tamad na Taiwanese pag dating sa trabaho halos lahat ng pahirap na gawain pinapasa sa pilipinong manggagawa.
basta ingat na lang po kayo kapwa Pilipino . di kayo panghihiyangan ng bansang ito.. kung ayaw nyo ng policy nila.. dami natin kakumpetensya.. Indo,Vietnam.. di po sila magdadalawang isip na di kayo pakinggan kasi ibang lahi tayo ..
Tama po kayo
Ang Alam ko regular 5 days working day at optional na overtime ang ika 6 days. So magiging mas Malaki ang take home pay mo. At itataas pa ang basic salary.
Ganyan d2 samin, linggo lunes off pero Ppsok k ng lunes ot.
Ganyan d2 samin, linggo lunes off pero Ppsok k ng lunes ot.
Hindi sila gagawa ng batas n papabor para satin kya ano pa aasahan natin jan..