My Opinion: They'll Come For The Jews Last

I hear there has been talk of impeachment for Trump, even from Republicans. Impeachment of Trump won't help because Pence and millennial Christians would become president, what the Republicans wanted all along. Only if a new election was held in which Bernie Sanders' democratic socialism won't be overrun by Democrat elites would it do any good for Americans. Civil War II would be a better result.

Better to break up the United States than remain a house divided and conquered. Whichever party would win a new election, the result would be the same for workers: union protection on the run, part-timed, outsourced jobs overseas and underpaid jobs at home. The United States as we know it must be ended. World domination by capitalist corporations must be ended. 

To My Jewish Friends and Family who Bad-Mouth Muslims:

Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) was a prominent Protestant pastor who emerged as an outspoken public foe of Adolf Hitler and spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps. Niemöller is perhaps best remembered for the quotation:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— 

Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— 

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

     The Jews are last now that racists like Netanyahu foolishly had a leg up with U.S. Middle World policy. You could see it turning; how Obama and Kerry refused to veto the censure of Israel for illegally building on Palestinian land. Next,  the U.S. fascists are coming for Millennial Ground Zero, Jerusalem, so dear Jesus can come back and take over the world with the rest of the revisionist WASPs. If you don't support the Muslims right to be in the U.S., they will come for you next, well maybe not you personally since you obviously are no threat,  but why will the U.S. buy the kosher milk when it can own the whole kosher cow, Israel itself? And blame it on ISIS, an American/NATO creation. Can you see the light? Can you read between the lines? At least my kids have a place to go when the clampdown comes in the U.S. Yours don't. 

     I am so glad I am living in Taiwan and not living in the U.S. anymore. I am glad that my children have connections to Taiwan, too, and can come here if things get really bad for them in the U.S. Outside of a few progressive friends and millions of unknown progressive comrades in organizations there, I don’t give a damn what happens to most Americans who don't come out and protest, coup or same old neo-liberal imperialist anti-worker shit. Most of the people I knew weren’t activists; I tolerated them on Facebook until they took exception to my radical stance, or refused to go beyond complaining and red baiting me. I gave up on helping most of my fellow American workers' union friends and colleagues around 2008 after the IWW NYC GMB, FDR UFT and Bread & Roses Club activism proved fruitless because of egotistical obstructionists among us. I only volunteered once or twice after that, but passed the word in e-mails and Facebook and made financial contributions to progressive organizations, and still do. I thank The Lord I could retire with a good pension in 2012 and get the hell out. There is more democracy and liberty here in Taiwan. 

      I didn’t have to drive the ten hour round-trip in Lunar New Year traffic when I went to Tainan to visit my wife's family yesterday; that made all the difference. I daydreamed in the car about ideas for the science fiction novel I am writing, A Western Metempsychosis.

      I decided that my team of four time travelers will go to Berlin, travel back to 1923, transmigrate into Hitler and three of his henchmen, and turn the beer hall putsch into a call for anarcho-syndicalist revolution driving Hitler to suicide after he renounces himself in his autobiography.  Then, I’ll have Earl and Peg take an ocean liner back to New York and meet Leon and Gail who will fly back in a zeppelin. There they will then take a locomotive down south, time travel to the 1830’s to neutralize Andrew Jackson, or go to Key West, Florida on Flagler’s folly and take a steamer to San Salvador to await Columbus. My history buff friend thinks I should fuck Jackson and go straight to Columbus. I may just do that. The book will become like Around the World in 80 Days with a progressive, anti-racist, anti-Millennial Christian twist, but only fiction.  

     Happy Year of The Rooster; strut your stuff, fellow workers; be Red Hens, but don't be chickens. 

My Opinion: Trump's Good News Week

"They are trying to set a tone to chill further demos of this nature, and I don't think it's going to work." This is my favorite line from an article I read about arrests after the Trump Inaugural. I unsubscribed to Truth-out a few years ago and joined Reader Supported News RSN, the break-away faction of the service. In media controlled U.S., contributing to fear is the most common way to instill it, not that this didn't happen but the author admits the mass arrests are nothing new. I was "kettled" with a few thousand in RFK stadium at the first Moratorium Day in 1970, scary for a sixteen year old, but we partied all night and the pigs released us, without charges, in the morning. As FDR said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

      My only news is chosen Facebook pages and a few seconds of international news on Taiwan TV. I hardly even read the Taipei Times (and can't get the China Post) except for articles on labor. Remember that one of the last actions of Obama was to sign the "Ministry of Information" Act, and refuse to pardon Edward Snowden, a whistleblower. The "coup" was complete when Bush beat Gore; this is only hammering in a few loose nails. Correct reaction to it has always been the same: non-complicity, boycott, general strike, but who was organizing it and who was listening. As the frog boiled slowly, unaware of it being killed, so did Capitalism learn how to neutralize the opposition? The only thing to do now is the same as it always has been, to work in the community where you live assisting less fortunate folk and helping workers to organize unions.

This is an opportunity the progressive movement hasn't had since Nixon’s involvement in Vietnam made it obvious. So long as millions of people continue going out in the streets, over-stuffing the prison system and bogging it down, organizing in their communities when they get home, this gift from the fascist hell of capitalism will be doomed because the people, united, can never be defeated. 

The typical liberal American refuses to realize what s/he hasn’t done that deserves this. It would destroy one’s whole worldview, that things suck for one, personally and for Americans in general because one and all are too selfish and self absorbed to reach out and get involved with community organizing, too lazy to pick up a picket sign or start a workers’ union. Instead the divide and conquer tactics of the state prevail. Look at liberal Americans; arguing about what we need to make the future better; complaining that socialists are living in the past. Perhaps one realize it is too late for one to do anything meaningful to help one’s neighbors or, worse still, choosing to live in a neighborhood with people who don’t warrant help; the toothless wonders opposed to universal health care. How pathetic one is living amongst people one doesn’t like, or perhaps it is one’s lead balloon that keeps one down and gives one a chance to complain and make excuses about one’s lack of progressive life. One can't change one’s past but one can change one’s future. One can start

Is Trump’s Mexican wall to not let people in or to keep Americans from getting out? Why people from these countries would want to go to the US or NATO countries beat me; it's cold, uncaring, racist, and boring.  I like the old Wobbly joke about what the worker says when his boss angrily threatens to throw him out the window: “Before you can throw me out the window, I'm walking out the door." 

To pollute at will is the goal; to insure continued U.S. global dominance and coercion, but progressives know already have the data; they will pass it down. Meanwhile there is no reason to save the world if the slave master is going to be the U.S. Help the rest of the world cope and live well with your family in another land until further notice.

Guardian article about Foxconn Prick

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/23/foxconn-american-factory-plans-trump

My Opinion: The Women March for Bread & Roses, too.

     Millions of Americans, including my three daughters, turned out in dozens of cities for the Women’s March yesterday, much more than the people who attended the inauguration. The Black Block was out showing what must become routine; the trashing of corporate U.S. institutions. 

I commented: “If these marches against Trump only result in the next president being a Democrat, they're a waste of time. Only a socialist president can turn things around domestically, improve common people's lives, and stop U.S. imperialist policy in the world.” The bottom line is that if Hilary Clinton was elected, the crowds would not have been so toxic to U.S. policy, a policy that doesn’t change no matter who is manipulated into its presidency.

Trump is the real face of racist, misogynist, capitalist U.S. with its corporate controlled media; Americans better face it. Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know. Charter schools and the looting of public funds for private investors is a Democrat undertaking. Outsourcing sweatshops overseas, polluting the world, and dismantling union power are nonpartisan, too. Threatening the world with Christian millennialism manifest destiny will have to be stopped; it won’t stop of its own volition. It will not stop until the anarcho-syndicalist socialist revolution in the U.S. and the world eradicates its tendency.

Let the CIA, FBI, Senate, Congress, and Supreme Court assist Trump to bring out the storm-troopers and SWAT teams to force the showdown. The revolution cannot be done peacefully. U.S./NATO imperialism is ruthless; it knows no peace. It must be fought back. Every one of the million marchers must become a Black Blocker for direct action; there is no other way to stop the violence of the ruling class.

      Here is what I wrote back to a friend who joined the Women’s March in New York:

Love that you went marching, too. While all I do for the movement now is donate funds, write blogs, and share Facebook posts, you are on the front line with my three daughters, two in Pittsburgh and one in a Portland march.  If it took a Trump to awaken the masses to the peril that every administration has imposed on the common people, immigrants, natives, slaves, and women, let the CIA/FBI and its corporate ruling class know that "the people" won't go down without a fight. 

      I copied it, along with the words and music to Bread & Roses, to my curmudgeon cousin  in response to his silly wondering what for did they march. He would complain if they organized, too. I hope Trump goats the ruling class to make many false moves that agitate the people; better than a suave Obama or Clinton that put everyone to sleep while they dismantled democracy and started wars. Until the deaths of the ruling class outnumber those that their bombs and guns have killed, the people’s war must not end.  

Bread & Roses

http://unionsong.com/u159.html

My Opinion: This Has Nothing to Do With Trump

I got an e-mail from a friend in the U.S. which simply said, “We are nervously awaiting the inauguration.” I replied:

You sound like there will be a coup after he speaks. I was at the inauguration of George W. Bush, both times.  We rioted in the streets. I hung out with the Black Block anarchists who turned newspaper boxes and trash cans over, threw a few through Starbucks windows, used others to block the roads where police cars were chasing us. There weren't enough of us. Most demonstrators lined the parade route and shouted at them as they drove by. Some threw eggs. The bastard got cozy in the spring, vowing revenge for his Daddy's loses in Iraq, took the summer off, and was sincerely surprised when the WTC buildings were leveled. 

That was the end for me; I knew I had to double up my activism. I became more and more involved with the IWW believing that through a grass-root unionizing of all workplaces, the peaceful revolution from corporate domination could be done. I still think that way, but most Americans sat on their asses; most of my colleagues just covered theirs as union benefits kept being fretted away. I ran for chapter leader and was obstructed by the clique of egotist liberals; they were my truest enemy because most people believed their gentile natures would guide us through. I knew they were obstructionists for something urgent that had to be forcefully attended to immediately; the Pacifica radio station,WBAI, had a coup and the political programming was re-routed. That was 2001. 

Where was Bernie Sanders in 2004? How could Americans be fooled into Obama? Thinking he was different because his skin wasn't white?  Like a woman president would be different because she wasn't a man? The Democrats and Republicans are two sides of the same rusty coin. I see no hope for America as it continues its corporate fascism; I don't fear Trump; he doesn't make me nervous. He is a natural extension of corporate WASP U.S. imperialism, a filthy beacon to fascists all over the WASP world, from Kosovo to Ukraine, Germany to England. 

Any enemy of the U.S. is a friend of mine; any country that will react to any more U.S encroachment on their territory and cultures. The darkest spot is right under the lighthouse; most ignorant Americans are fooled, and the intelligent Democratic Liberals are politely fooled. This has been a long time coming. Either join the underground or exodus and help "the enemy" of the U.S. defend itself. 

      My point was it has nothing to do with Trump; the same thing would be happening if Clinton was chosen. The president is just a figurehead for deeper CIA/FBI policy of a secret agenda that is not so secret at all; starve off any chance of democracy because the people will benefit from democracy and the corporate state will suffer from it. 

US military club reopened on Yangmingshan

Staff writer, with CNA

The bar, which was originally a swimming pool, at the renovated Brick Yard 33 1/3 on Taipei’s Yangmingshan is pictured after the area’s reopening on Thursday.

Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times

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The Grass Mountain Teen Club, a brick compound on Yangmingshan (陽明山) that served as a club for US soldiers and their families stationed in Taiwan from the 1950s to the 1970s, has reopened as a public space for music, food and nostalgia.

The former club, built in the 1950s and named Grass Mountain Teen Club in 1968, has been renamed the Brick Yard 33 1/3 (BY33). Combining indoor and outdoor spaces, it is a place where people can listen to vinyl records, eat food inspired by southern US cuisine and savor the atmosphere.

The project was undertaken under the Old House renaissance program launched by the Taipei City Government in 2012. Private investors were encouraged to join the project to restore “cultural properties” that had been abandoned and “revive” them by transforming them into cultural and creative spaces.

In 2014, U-Tech Media Corp won a public tender to renovate the US soldiers’ club, which consisted of red-brick buildings and two swimming pools on a nearly 3,300m2 site on a Yangmingshan hillside.

The compound, which was part of a cluster of dormitories for US military personnel stationed in Taiwan, was a key leisure site of the soldiers and their family members in the 1950s to 1970s.

At the BY33 opening ceremony on Thursday last week, U-Tech Media chairman Steve Chang (張昭焚) said the company budgeted NT$70 million (US$2.22 million) to restore the old compound, but spent NT$95 million because it wanted the renovation to be as close to its original state as possible.

Gordon Yeh (葉垂景), chairman of the Ritek Group, which founded U-Tech Media, said the company was determined to restore the buildings using their original construction techniques and it scoured the nation for builders with knowledge of traditional skills to assist in the project.

His team located the factory that produced the roof tiles used when the club was remodeled more than 30 years ago and found more than 10,000 of the same tiles still in the factory’s inventory, Yeh said.

After more than two years of construction, the club was transformed into a multipurpose complex divided into three areas: a dining room, a music room and a public bar.

There are also plenty of indoor and outdoor spaces for exhibitions and performances, according to U-Tech Media.

“We hope to attract locals, schools and other organizations,” U-Tech general manager Lo Yi-fu (羅宜富) said. “We built an exclusive space for people to listen to vinyl records and hold performances, mixing old and new music, Western and Oriental music.”

BY33 is open every day from 11am to 9pm except for Jan. 27 and Jan. 28 during the Lunar New Year holiday.

Access may be restricted when there are exclusive activities, but admission is free.

Workers demand compensation

LOST IN TRANSLATION:A government Web site that publishes information on foreign workers who want to change employers is in Chinese, a campaigner said

By Abraham Gerber  /  Staff reporter

Indonesian workers protest outside New Taipei City Hall yesterday, demanding contract extensions and compensation for agency fees and lost work time.

Photo: Lai Hsiao-tung, Taipei Times

More than 100 Indonesian workers yesterday protested outside New Taipei City Hall, demanding that their contracts be extended and compensation be paid for agency fees and lost work time.

“These workers paid the equivalent of three years of agency fees, but will be sent back after working only one-and-a-half to two years,” said Chen Hsiu-lien (陳秀蓮), a Taiwan International Workers’ Association member who led the demonstration.

The workers in 2013 signed three-year contracts with Hwang Chang General Contractor, but received no salaries until more than a year-and-half later when they were hired for construction projects, such as an athletes’ village in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口) for this year’s Summer Universiade, she said, adding that agency fees for job placement came to more than NT$110,000 (US$3,461), about five months’ salary.

The workers are faced with the possibility of paying agency fees for a second time because of the construction company’s unwillingness to directly rehire them, she said.

Amendments made last year to the Employment Service Act (就業服務法) allow foreign workers to renew their contracts or transfer to a new employer after working for three years without having to return to their home nation.

However, foreign workers have had difficulty using the right to change employers because of language barriers and a lack of government support, Chen said.

“The government Web site that publishes information about foreign workers seeking to switch employers is in Chinese, so they cannot verify if they have been put on the Web site by their employers,” she said.

“Even if their employer has completed the paperwork, they are in effect in the hands of agencies, because they do not have time to look for work, and they do not know where and how to find employers,” she added.

She called on the government to provide incentives to employers who hire or rehire foreign workers who are already in Taiwan.

Gender gap still wide at top of businesses

MIND THE GAP:The gender gap reflects a tradition of business owners passing control to their sons, with many companies run by men, with women as only the nominal head

Staff writer, with CNA

Although the percentage of women in top-level positions in Taiwanese businesses is at a record high, there is still a big gap in the ratio of male to female chief executive officers, a Ministry of Finance official said yesterday, citing ministry data.

As of the end of 2015, there were about 1.33 million companies in Taiwan, 36.1 percent of which were headed by women, the official said.

However, although the percentage of female chief executive officers was the highest in Taiwan’s history, it still represented a wide gender gap and was only a 0.5 percentage point increase from 2010, the official said.

The gender gap was most likely wider than about 28 percentage points, as in some cases women are only nominal heads of businesses that are actually run by their husbands, the official said.

In a breakdown of the various sectors, the statistics showed that about 45 percent of companies in the catering and restaurant, as well as service, industries were run by female chief executives in 2015.

In other industries in general, 60 percent of the chief executive officers were male and the figure was more than 70 percent in the construction, manufacturing and transport, as well as storage sectors, ministry data showed.

Among businesses with paid-in capital of more than NT$10 million (US$312,560), the gap between male and female chief executive officers was 49 percentage points in favor of males, while among those with paid-in capital of less than NT$100,000, the gap was 18 percentage points, the data showed.

The wide gender gap at the top of bigger companies reflected a tradition of business owners passing control to their sons rather than to their daughters, the official said.

In the case of smaller companies in the catering, restaurant and service sectors they are usually started by female entrepreneurs, the official said.

Low wages, pensions top labor unions’ concerns

WORKERS’ RIGHTS:The rise of industrial unions has provided healthy competition to company unions and helped improve working conditions, a survey showed

By Abraham Gerber  /  Staff reporter

Low salaries, inadequate retirement guarantees and low organization rates are the top concerns of the nation’s company unions, a survey released yesterday by the Taiwan Labour Front showed.

Eighty percent of unions surveyed by the organization said that low salaries were a top concern, while 57 percent cited lack of adequate retirement guarantees and 38 percent cited low union organization rates.

“If we compare the results with a similar survey we conducted in 2000, there has been a huge change. Unions then were mainly worried about foreign workers, union independence and high unemployment — wages and working hours were far down the list of priorities,” Taiwan Labor and Social Policy Research Association executive director Chang Feng-yi (張烽益) said.

“This is the result of neoliberal globalization and increasing corporate powers, which have forced back salaries,” said Lin Thung-hong (林宗弘), an associate research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Sociology. “Since 2000, we have opened up cross-strait trade and investment, and joined the WTO, which has pounded the traditional manufacturing sector and given corporations ever greater bargaining power over wages.”

Factory closings have also led to the shuttering of many unions, contributing to a sharp drop in union organization rates, he said.

Enhancing prohibitions against illegal behavior, passing a minimum wage and reducing working hours topped policy concerns of unions in the survey, which also found that 27 percent of the unions had never negotiated a collective bargaining agreement, while only 36 percent believed the agreement they had signed was effective.

More than 70 percent of company unions said that the new industrial unions, which have become increasingly prominent since 2010 amendments to the Labor Union Act (工會法), have helped increase organization rates, with more than half stating that the new unions have provided healthy competition and helped improve labor conditions.

Kuan Shao-chun (管紹君), executive secretary of Bank SinoPac’s company union, said that industrial unions were sometimes more effective in mobilizing workers because their officials are not necessarily employed by the same company as the workers they mobilize, making them less vulnerable to pressure and cooption.

The survey was sent to all 895 company unions registered with local governments, with a response rate of 20 percent.

Group decries low pay for alternative military service

By Abraham Gerber  /  Staff reporter

Salaries for alternative military service in private firms should be adjusted to reflect market rates, labor advocates affiliated with the Taiwan Higher Education Union said yesterday.

“The government has the nerve to use low salaries to encourage industries to use these people and then say it is recruiting talent for them,” said Su Tzu-hsuan (蘇子軒), a member of the union’s student action committee. “This can only wreak havoc on the labor market and worsen youth poverty.”

While the Ministry of National Defense has announced plans to phase out mandatory military service in 2018, men born prior to 1994 will still be obligated to perform at least one year of alternative military service, with those in “technology” or “research” service subject to longer terms.

While ordinary alternative military service consists of work in government bureaus, technology and research alternative service allows for employment at universities and in corporations.

Employers pay a fixed fee to the National Conscription Agency, which in turn sets and pays initial wages.

The National Conscription Agency’s wages for technology service are far below prevailing market rates, including for those with a bachelor’s degree, labor advocates said.

“If you are serious about building an all-volunteer military, you cannot keep holding on to this useful and cheap labor,” youth action committee member Tzeng Fu-chuan (曾福全) said. “The government should not be in the business of using its military personnel to profit private corporations.”

While corporations pay between NT$28,000 and NT$38,000 a month to employ technology service members, these are still substantially lower than the average wage when labor insurance and other mandatory expenses are taken into account, advocates said.

While alternative service members are allowed to negotiate their salary after an initial period, restrictions on transferring reduce their bargaining power, Tzeng said.

“They cannot leave because if they do, their time served will be discounted,” he said.

Alternative service personnel also lack proper channels for appeal in the event of an accident or labor dispute, he said.

The advocates called for Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) regulations to be fully applied to alternative service members and full work-based compensation, as well as the gradual abolition of both the service and mandatory military training that is to replace conscription.

TRA wary of Alishan railway takeover

TRANSFER:The agency voiced concern over the forest railway’s financial difficulties should it assume ownership as stated in a contract it has with the Forestry Bureau

By Shelley Shan  /  Staff reporter

A train runs on the Alishan Forest Railway in an undated photograph. The Forestry Bureau on Tuesday said that the bureau has no plans to terminate the Alishan train service.

Photo courtesy of the Forestry Bureau

The Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) on Tuesday said it would not take over the operation of the Alishan Forest Railway until it has sorted out its financial and asset transfer issues.

Launched in 1912, the railway was built for logging purposes, but was converted into a passenger transport system after the government banned logging in Alishan Forest in 1963.

It has since been managed by the Forestry Bureau, which outsourced the operation of the railway to a private contractor.

In April 2010, a train derailment caused by a falling tree killed five commuters and led to the termination of the contract.

The bureau later entrusted the task of operating the forest railway to the TRA, with funding provided by the bureau’s Forestry Development and Forest Building Fund (林務發展及造林基金).

A contract signed by the two government agencies stipulated that ownership of the railway was to be transferred to the TRA by Dec. 31, 2015. However, the transfer was delayed, because the railway was severely damaged by Typhoon Dujuan in September 2015.

On Tuesday, a report in the Chinese-language United Daily News claimed that the forest railway might be shut down because the Forestry Development and Forest Building Fund would soon run out of funds.

The report added that the bureau had insisted that the TRA take over the operation of the forest railway.

TRA director-general Jason Lu (鹿潔身) cited the high cost of maintaining the railway because the slopes are prone to landslides during inclement weather.

Lu said the government subsidy has to be in place before the TRA can fully take over the operation of the system, which has been logging annual operating losses of about NT$300 million (US$9.3 million).

The TRA will also need to ascertain how funding for the railway’s operation should be budgeted and ways to address the financial losses, he said.

“The TRA only assists the bureau in operating the forest railway, and it is the bureau’s job to figure out what it has to do with the Forestry Development and Forest Building Fund. [The bureau] cannot force us to take over the forest railway, because we are experiencing financial losses as well,” he said.

Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Hung-chih (楊宏志) denied that the fund would soon run out of money, adding that the bureau has budgeted NT$6.7 billion for the fund this year, which would pay for forest-building initiatives and maintenance of forest parks nationwide.

Both agencies are negotiating issues relating to the ownership transfer, which has been rescheduled for the end of this year,

The bureau would submit a more detailed plan in March, he said.

The forest railway generated an annual revenue of NT$100 million when the bureau was in charge, with annual losses limited to NT$300 million, Yang said.

Since the TRA began operating the forest railway, annual revenue and operating losses have expanded to NT$120 million and NT$400 million respectively, he said.

Employers struggling with new act: poll

’COST INCREASES:’Businesses said that the new labor laws mean that they would have to alter shift schedules and employ more workers to meet staffing requirements

Staff writer, with CNA

Newly implemented labor laws on vacation days and the 40-hour workweek are set to have the biggest impacts on the service, old economy and retail sectors, according to the results of a survey published by an online human resources firm yesterday.

The firm, 1111.com.tw, said the new rules that took effect on Dec. 23 last year after the legislature revised the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法), have seriously affected the labor market and would test the flexibility of businesses as they respond to the changes.

The survey of local businesses found that 77 percent of respondents did not fully understand the new system, while 4.5 percent said they did not understand it at all.

Of those polled, 36.8 percent said they had a partial understanding of the system, while 35.6 percent said they understood most of it, but they still had some questions.

Sixty-eight percent of respondents expected the new rules to affect their operations, including 12.2 percent that believe they would “have a big impact.”

Businesses cited “personnel cost increases,” “difficulties in meeting staffing requirements,” and “a big increase in overtime pay” as the main challenges they faced in coping with the new regulations.

Affected businesses said they were “changing their shift schedules,” “adding part-time workers,” and “hiring full-time workers” in response.

The results were part of a survey on the willingness of businesses to hire people in the first quarter of this year, with 33 percent of respondents saying they felt the economy would improve, 47 percent saying it would be about the same as last year, and 20 percent predicting the economy would get worse.

On the willingness of businesses to hire people, 61.7 percent of respondents said they intended to take on more staff in the first quarter of the year, with the companies most upbeat on headcount in the service, medical, agricultural, livestock and information and technology sectors.

The businesses identified “filling vacancies,” “regular recruitment,” and “searching for talent at a time when many people are changing jobs” as the main reasons for looking to boost staff numbers.

Under new labor rules, total maximum working hours for employees have been reduced to 40 hours per week from 84 hours every two weeks, and workers are now entitled to one mandatory day off and one “flexible” rest day per week — all measures that could increase operating costs.

Employers face much higher overtime costs if they have employees work on their “flexible” day off, and they are not allowed to have staff work on their mandatory day off, because the rules mandate that workers can work no more than six consecutive days.

Cabinet rebuts business leaders’ costs assertions

LOSE-LOSE SITUATIONMild inflation is expected this year, but regulatory measures would not be activated until inflation reaches 2 percent, the central bank said

By Chen Wei-han  /  Staff reporter

Cabinet spokesman Hsu Kuo-yung, third right, and other officials yesterday participate in a press conference at the Executive Yuan to address the issue of commodity price hikes.

Photo: CNA

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The labor law amendments could improve working conditions, with only limited impact on consumer prices, the Cabinet said yesterday, rebutting what business leaders said were the side effects of the “lose-lose legislation.”

Defending amendments to the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法), which stipulates a five-day workweek and higher overtime pay, the Executive Yuan said the legislation is a major improvement in general working conditions, while the impact on businesses is acceptable to labor-intensive industries.

Chinese National Federation of Industries secretary-general Tsai Lien-sheng (蔡練生) on Tuesday said the amendments were a “lose-lose” legislation that hurt employers, workers and consumers with increased personnel costs, lower salaries due to fewer working hours and rising consumer prices.

“That employers quibble with employees [over overtime pay] is what makes it a lose-lose situation,” Vice Premier Lin Hsi-yao (林錫耀) said, calling on businesses to take care of their employees.

Two major goals of the amendments — to reduce working hours and unify the nation’s leave schemes — have been achieved, although there are side effects, such as a rise in operating costs for labor-intensive businesses.

The legislation hardly affects companies that have already adopted a five-day workweek, which accounts for about 65 percent of the workforce, Lin said.

For employers of the other 35 percent of workers, they are likely to see a tolerable increase in personnel costs.

“The public has misunderstood the legislation and believed that businesses would have to pay considerably more in overtime pay, but that is not the case,” Lin said.

The amendments would increase the personnel and operational costs of the manufacturing industry by 1.5 percent and 0.1 percent respectively, National Development Council Deputy Minister Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said.

As for the service industry, a labor-intensive industry that is more susceptible to the new overtime pay requirements, personnel and operational costs would only increase by 2.1 percent and 0.22 percent respectively, Kung added.

The nation will experience “very mild inflation,” with this year’s inflation estimated at 1.26 percent to 1.46 percent, which is “fairly acceptable,” central bank Governor Perng Fai-nan (彭淮南) said, adding that the central bank would not activate regulatory measures until inflation reaches 2 percent.

The consumer price index is estimated to rise by between 0.2 percent to 0.4 percent this year with the implementation of the legislation and the nation is likely to see a low and stable rise in consumer prices, Perng added.

The Fair Trade Commission is to monitor whether businesses are making coordinated price adjustments to manipulate the market. No such activity has been evident in restaurant prices, it said.