• Last updated:2021-11-03

Quarterly Focus

• Government Implements “Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women” Measures and plans done by the Council of Labor Affairs to eliminate the gender.

   

  The Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) has enacted the following laws, along with related regulations, to protect equal employment rights for women in accordance with the Constitution: the “Labor Standards Act,” “Gender Equality in Employment Act,” “Employment Services Act,” “Labor Insurance Act,” “Employment Insurance Act,” “Occupational Accident Labor Protection Act,” and “Labor Safety and Health Act.”

   

Policies & Regulations

• Revision of Three Labor Laws Marks Milestone in Laborers’ Rights and Interests

   

  During her past career for the protection of women’s rights, Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) Minister Wang Ju-Hsuan often discovered that a woman fighting for her rights and interests from a position of weakness would frequently be embarrassed by an inability to pay the enormous cost of litigation. Since taking over her present office, Minister Wang has found that laborers face the same difficulty; so, on May 1 of 2009, she established a “Labor Rights Fund” to provide legal support for laborers. The new provisions of the “Settlement of Labor Disputes Law” provide a legal basis for the temporary reduction of or exemption from litigation costs and guarantee bonds, so that laborers fighting for their rights and interests do not have to bear enormous litigation costs. In the meantime, subsidies for litigation provided by government agencies help balancing the playing field in the settlement of labor-management disputes and assure laborers of their legal rights.

   

• Protecting Labor Rights and Interests: The Mass Layoff Labor Protection Law

   

  Under the impact of the apparent growing trend toward globalization, in order to survive and develop continuously, corporations have no choice but to carry out strategic redeployment in regard to the organization of their production and processing operations; and, under these conditions, mass layoffs are difficult to avoid. While it is part of the natural rhythm of the free-market mechanism for employers to make operational decisions that include mass layoffs, such decisions face laborers with employment problems. The Mass Layoff Labor Protection Law has twin objectives: One is to regulate the labor market and promote employment security, and another is to provide safeguards in the mass layoff process and reinforce employment protection.

   

• Creating a Friendly Workplace: Helping Corporations Provide Child Care Services for Laborers

   

  The structure and methods of labor are undergoing major changes as the knowledge economy develops, with women entering the labor market in large numbers have become the trends and the number of double-income families growing all the time. Under these conditions, child care is no longer the responsibility of women alone; but needs the participation of family, government, corporations, and society as a whole.

   

• Reinforcing the Job-change System for Foreign Laborers

   

  If a foreign laborer encounters a situation not attributable to himself or herself and the original employer is unable to retain employment, the foreign laborer may apply to the Council of Labor Affairs for a change of employer. But in order to reinforce the job-change mechanism while taking both the needs of employers and the working rights and interests of foreign laborers into consideration, the CLA recently reviewed the change-of-employer mechanism and mapped out plans under which, once the local government allows an unilateral cancellation of employment contract in cases that foreign laborers are not attributable, the foreign laborers can change employers once the contract cancellation initiated by either the employers or the foreign laborers.

   

News Outlook

• Labor Council to Consult Labor and Employer parties in Promoting  Domestic Worker Protection Act

   

  The Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) has always been intensely concerned with the labor rights of domestic workers, and after years of discussion has now formulated a draft of Domestic Worker Protection Act (tentative translation), which was submitted to the Executive Yuan for deliberation in March this year. The CLA notes that it kept the conventions established by the International Labor Organization (ILO) in mind during the process of formulation, and that the spirit of those conventions has been incorporated in the draft act. The CLA also commits itself to the constant solicitation of a wide range of opinion as it continues its vigorous promotion, in an attitude of pragmatism and in line with conditions inTaiwan, of the Domestic Worker Protection Act.

   

• Expanded Protection of Right to Work for Foreign Spouses: Divorced Foreign Spouses May Now Continue to Work in Taiwan Without Work Permits

   

  In order to protect the rights of foreign spouses to work during their residences in Taiwan, the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) said that in addition to their rights to work in Taiwan without work permits while their marital relationships prevail, as of August 20, 2011; foreign spouses are allowed to work without applying for a work permit after their marital relationship dissolved for the causes of divorce, death, or other reason, so long as their uninterrupted residences in Taiwan is approved by the National Immigration Agency in accordance with the provisions of the Immigration Act.

   

• Source:Department of General Planning
• Publication Date:2011-06-30
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