NTU union hails decision to toss lawsuit

By Loa Iok-sin  /  Staff reporter

Fri, Nov 08, 2013 - Page 3

The National Taiwan University (NTU) Union yesterday welcomed the Taipei High Administrative Court’s decision to reject a lawsuit filed by the university against a Council of Labor Affairs’ ruling that students working as teaching assistants (TA) and research assistants (RA) are school employees.

“The court decision says whether you are a TA, an RA, or are hired for a project, you are an employee of the university. Your status as a student and as an employee do not contradict each other,” NTU Union secretary-general Lin Heng-kai (林衡凱) said after the court handed down its decision in the morning. “This is a victory not only for the NTU union, but it is a victory for the more than 100,000 graduate students working as assistants on campuses around the country.”

Both the council and the court have made similar decisions that recognize that students working as teaching or research assistants are university employees, “which means we enjoy all the rights granted to laborers by the law. We hereby call on the National Taiwan University administration to recognize those rights and not appeal the court’s decision,” Lin said.

Teaching and research assistants filed an complaint with the council, accusing the university of violating labor laws by giving salaries or providing working conditions that are lower than those required by the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法).

After the council ruled in favor of the union in April, the university filed a lawsuit seeking to have the council’s decision overturned.

The university said that graduate students working as teaching or research assistants are not employees, but students with jobs that are internship in nature and that give them hands-on experience, so they should not enjoy full labor rights under the law.

However, the Taipei High Administrative Court disagreed and rejected the school’s lawsuit.

“We want our status as employees so that we may have a legal basis to fight for our working hours, salary, labor insurance and other labor rights,” Lin said. “We call on the government and schools to take responsibility for protecting labor rights on campuses.”

“What we need are talented people, not slaves,” he said.

Police break up protest by former Hualon employees

QUICK RESPONSE:：Police arrived and removed the people soon after the group showed up unannounced and impeded traffic outside the Presidential Office

By Loa Iok-sin  /  Staff reporter

Tue, Jan 28, 2014 - Page 3

Nearly 100 former Hualon Group employees and their supporters staged a surprise demonstration outside the Presidential Office in Taipei yesterday morning then blocked traffic for half an hour while they called on the government to assist them with their demand that their former employer issue retirement payouts.

“The government is incapable, workers’ New Year is horrible. Give us the retirement payouts we deserve,” about 100 former Hualon employees and their supporters chanted as they arrived unannounced in front of the building and sat down on the street, blocking traffic at about 10am yesterday.

“We’re not here to sabotage or threaten anyone. We are here begging for help from the government,” former Hualon employee Chen Wen-ming (陳文明) said. “As many as 400 of us are owed retirement payouts from our former employer, and according to the law, it’s the government’s job to help us pursue what we deserve, but we are not getting any actual help despite promises from officials over the past years.”

Chen said that in the past few years the workers have sought help from the Legislative Yuan, the Control Yuan, the Executive Yuan, the Presidential Office and the Council of Labor Affairs and while representatives from those agencies all promised to help, the issue remains unresolved.

The workers were soon confronted by busloads of police officers who removed them by force not long after the protest began.

Protesters resisted and clashed with officers, leading to the arrest of Chen Wen-ming, as well as two student activists, Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷) and Chen Kuang-hsuan (陳光軒).

The protest group gathered in front of Renai Road Police Station in the afternoon after learning that the three protesters were taken there after being arrested and waited until they were released.

“It saddens me to see how brutally the police have treated us and those who have supported us,” Hualon Self-Help Association president Lee Tsuei-ming (李翠明) said in front of the police station. “We are only trying to get what we were supposed to receive. It is ridiculous that the police are protecting government officials and capitalists who have repeatedly broken their promises, instead of protecting workers.”

The demonstrators soon ended their action after laying red posters with the character zhai (debt, 債) on the ground.

They said the word was meant to remind the government of the debts that were still owed to the former Hualon workers.

Ministry approves new ‘brainwashing’ curriculum

‘TOTAL OVERHAUL’:：DPP spokesperson Xavier Chang said the MOE’s adjustments were huge changes, while protesters said they would make classes China-centric

By Loa Iok-sin and Jake Chung  /  Staff reporter and staff writer

Tue, Jan 28, 2014 - Page 1

Groups yesterday protested the Ministry of Education’s bid to “slightly adjust” the national high-school curriculum, calling the move part of a “brainwashing” policy that would see the new curriculum reflect a more China-oriented perspective.

Despite the groups’ opposition, the ministry later formally approved a new curriculum on Chinese literature and social sciences.

“Taiwanese have fought long and hard to reach a stage where there is much less political influence on our education, so it is therefore unacceptable that the government under the leadership of President Ma Ying-jeou [馬英九] is making an U-turn on this progress,” Jim Lee (李筱峰), a professor at National Taipei University of Education’s Graduate School of Taiwanese Culture, told a rally in front of the ministry in Taipei.

“The so-called ‘slight adjustment’ is not slight at all, it’s a fundamental and dramatic change from a Taiwan-oriented perspective to a China-oriented perspective in education,” Lee added.

Saying that the current curriculum is “too friendly” when it comes to describing the period when Japan controlled Taiwan and unconstitutional when describing China, ministry officials and members of its curriculum outlines adjustment task force have proposed calling the era of Tokyo’s rule the “Japanese colonial period” and referring to “China” as “Mainland China” in textbooks.

They also proposed making adjustments to the description of the period when the nation was under the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) authoritarian regime.

“I am totally opposed to replacing Taiwan’s perspective for China’s in our nation’s history classes,” National Taipei University student Lai Pin-yu (賴品妤) said. “Taiwanese history can be neither Chinese history, nor KMT history.”

National Taiwan University history professor Chen Tsui-lien (陳翠蓮) criticized the government for making such dramatic changes clandestinely.

“These are major alterations and therefore require more public participation,” she said.

As the groups protested outside the ministry, another group of demonstrators led by the Alliance of Referendum for Taiwan tried to block the entrance to the National Academy for Educational Research (NAER), where the curriculum task force was meeting.

“We’re here to stop the task force from making rash decisions without consulting the public,” alliance convener Tsay Ting-kuei (蔡丁貴) said. “This is such a controversial issue, it should not be decided without having more public discussions — especially when NAER vice president Tzeng Shih-jay [曾世杰] promised us on Friday that he would organize public hearings before making any decisions.”

The protesters briefly stopped some task force members from entering the building, but were removed by police after severe clashes.

The ministry said the changes are based on the 12-year national education system, which is set to be implemented in August, and aimed at achieving better continuity between junior-high and senior-high school textbooks.

After reviewing the curriculum on literature and social sciences, the ministry said it would next review health and physical education.

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) condemned the ministry for not halting the initiative.

“The ‘adjustment’ of the curriculum outlines is not an adjustment, but a total overhaul,” DPP spokesperson Xavier Chang (張惇涵) said.

The ministry’s changes “seriously conflict” with most people’s understanding about the nation’s history and geography, Chang said, adding that more than 85 percent of respondents in a DPP opinion poll say that the country’s territory includes Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu, but not “mainland China.”

Longest railroad strike in south Korea ends, struggle continues

By John Catalinotto on January 10, 2014

Thousands of south Korean railroad workers ended their strike Dec. 30 after three weeks of intense struggle against the right-wing, anti-labor regime of President Park Geun-hye. It was the longest railroad strike in the history of Korail, the national railroad company. This intense class conflict has now moved to parliament, where a committee made up of the government and opposition parties will make decisions.
The Korean Railroad Workers Union began its strike Dec. 9 with an 80 percent strike vote. The workers and their union saw the government’s restructuring plan as threatening privatization of the railroads, with loss of jobs, benefits and services. The strike quickly developed into one of the sharpest worker-government conflicts in the recent past, attracting support from the national union confederation, the KCTU.
Korail fired more than 4,000 workers on Dec. 9 and announced a plan to hire 660 strikebreakers.
Solidarity demonstrations, rallies and other actions were held in Australia, Japan, Indonesia and Brazil, and even one in San Francisco on Dec. 27 organized by the Transport Workers Solidarity Committee. (workers.org, Jan. 2)
President Park not only condemned the strikers for allegedly harming the economy, she ordered an attack on KRWU headquarters to arrest 10 union leaders on Dec. 16 by a SWAT team of hundreds of police. The SWAT team failed to find and arrest them, however, during the raid.
Park is the daughter of former south Korean dictator Park Chung-hee, who ruled for 18 years before being assassinated by his own secret police in 1979. The current president is known for her aggressive posture against north Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea), for her anti-labor policies and for outlawing the most progressive of the opposition parties.
The KCTU called a general strike on Dec. 27 to protest these union-busting measures. Some 100,000 supporters marched that day in Seoul, the capital, demanding no privatization and the resignation of the Park government. Three days later an agreement among political parties ended the strike.
The government and Korail still maintain heavy disciplinary measures, criminal charges and a lawsuit for compensation for damages and provisional seizure against the KRWU and striking workers.
A Dec. 30 update on the KCTU Facebook page noted, “According to the demand of the KRWU, the standing committee on land infrastructure and transportation in the National Assembly decided to establish a Sub-committee on Railway Development which is composed of four members from ruling party and four members from opposition parties.
“The subcommittee will be advised by a Policy Advisory Committee, composed of the Ministry, Korail, KRWU and civil experts. It will prepare a plan to prevent privatization of Suseo-KTX in short-term and comprehensive railway development plan in mid and long term. The KRWU welcome the establishment of the sub-committee and continue its struggle to stop privatization and defend the union and its members from disciplinary measures and possible union busting.”
The KCTU page says the confederation will hold general strikes on Jan. 9 and Jan. 16 and mobilize other rallies to further this struggle.

Companies caught violating the Labor Standards Act
遲到一小時扣六千　僱主違勞基法

Migrant workers and worker rights’ activists demonstrate against the government’s failure to protect the rights of migrant workers in front of the Presidential Office on Dec. 15 last year.

移工與勞工維權者去年十二月十五日在總統府前，抗議政府未能保障移工的勞動條件。

The Taipei City Government Labor Inspection Office at the end of last year received several complaints from employees working for companies in the broadcast media, security and food and beverage sectors. Among them, one media company was allegedly deducting NT$100 from employee paychecks for every minute that they were late to work, or NT$6,000 for being an hour late. A private security company and other companies were forcing employees to bear the cost of the uniforms they were required to wear, deducting the cost from their wages. All of these actions violate the requirement in the Labor Standards Act that states wages must be paid in full. Those failing to do so can be fined between NT$200,000 and NT$300,000.
Department of Labor Chief Secretary Wu Meng-lin says that among the three companies that were investigated after receiving the complaints, it was found that the media company was using management as an excuse to dock workers’ wages for being late. According to the act, the amount being deducted for tardiness cannot exceed the calculated amount of an employee’s average hourly wages, Wu says, adding that deducting NT$6,000 for being an hour late is completely disproportionate.
The companies that created these unlawful requirements have been asked to amend them and the Taipei City Government Department of Labor will decide whether the names of the companies that broke the law will be made public.
(Liberty Times, Translated by Kyle Jeffcoat)
台北市勞動檢查處去年底接獲廣播媒體業、保全業及餐飲業等員工申訴，其中竟有媒體業者規定員工遲到一分鐘扣一百元，等同遲到一小時要扣六千元；亦有保全公司等業者強迫員工穿制服，制服費卻從勞工薪資扣款，皆違反「勞動基準法」之工資未全額給付規定，可處新台幣二至三十萬元罰鍰。
勞檢處主秘吳夢麟表示，稽查三家遭申訴公司發現，有媒體業者以管理為由，訂定勞工遲到扣款規定，但勞工上班遲到扣薪，不得逾越換算後勞工應領的時薪，一小時扣六千元，完全不符比例原則。

TODAY’S WORDS (今日單字)

1. deduct v.
扣除；減除 (kou4 chu2; jian3 chu2)
例: Income taxes and social security are automatically deducted from your paycheck.
(所得稅與社會福利自動從薪津扣除。)
2. uniform n.
制服 (zhi4 fu2)
例: The team is ordering new uniforms next month.
(球隊下個月要訂新制服。)
3. disproportionate adj.
不均衡的；不相稱的 (bu4 jun1 heng2 de5; bu4 xiang1 chen4 de5)
例: She believes that the poor bear a disproportionate share of the tax burden.
(她認為窮人負擔不相稱的賦稅。)