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Taiwan's Minimum wage may increase 4%

Minimum wage may increase 4%

‘WAY OFF’:The Taiwan Labour Front said the proposed monthly increase to NT$20,008 was unacceptable, as it is still far from the NT$23,745 that the group is asking for

By Kan Chih-chi and Jake Chung  /  Staff reporter, with staff writer and CNA

Minister of Labor Chen Hsiung-wen, center, addresses a meeting of the Basic Wage Committee at the Institute of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health in Sijhih District, New Taipei City, yesterday.

Photo: CNA

The nation’s monthly and hourly minimum wages may increase next year by about 4 percent, a Ministry of Labor committee concluded after a four-hour meeting yesterday.

The committee, presided over by Minister of Labor Chen Hsiung-wen (陳雄文), recommended that the minimum monthly wage be raised by 3.8 percent, or NT$735 per month, to NT$20,008, and that the minimum hourly wage be increased by 4.3 percent to NT$120.

If approved by the Executive Yuan, the wage increases — which would be more than double the government’s forecast of inflation of 1.64 percent this year — are to be implemented in July next year, the committee said.

Next year’s potential wage hike would follow a 1.2 percent rise in the minimum wage this year to NT$19,273, which took effect in July, and a 5.5 percent increase in the hourly minimum wage to NT$115, which was implemented in January.

According to the ministry, the proposed wage increase would directly affect 1.5 million Taiwanese and 300,000 foreign workers.

The Taiwan Labour Front yesterday said that the decision by the committee was unacceptable.

Taiwan is continuing on the path of oppressing its workers, the group said.

The fight for basic wages has been going on for at least three decades and the latest proposed increase “is still some way off from the NT$23,745 the group has set as the goal” for workers, Taiwan Labour Front secretary-general Son Yu-liam (孫友聯) said.

Moreover, the committee’s proposal continues to violate Article 7 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and Resolution No. 131 of the International Labor Organization, Son said.

The basic principle of “guaranteeing workers and their ability to provide their families with basic living standards” is what labor rights groups in Taiwan are aiming for, he said.

Son said the group would continue pushing to enact a law on reviewing basic wages to protect workers if the government delays wage adjustments because of pressure from businesses.

Minister of labor resigns

By Alison Hsiao  /  Staff reporter

Former minister of labor Pan Shih-wei is pictured in an undated photograph.

Photo: CNA

Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) approved Minister of Labor Pan Shih-wei’s (潘世偉) resignation last night, hours after Pan offered to step down during an early-morning telephone call to Jiang amid rumors of an extramarital affair.

Executive Yuan spokesperson Sun Lih-chyun (孫立群) said Jiang spoke again by phone to Pan in the afternoon and approved his resignation in the evening.

Deputy Minister of Labor Hau Feng-ming (郝鳳鳴) will take over for Pan until a new minister is appointed, Sun said.

Pan’s resignation came just a day after Next Magazine reported that he had made three nighttime visits to his female secretary in a week earlier this month.

In its latest issue, the Chinese-language magazine said Pan had also taken his secretary on official foreign visits with business-class airline tickets that had been paid for with government funds.

Pan had been quick on Wednesday to refute the accusation of an affair, while his secretary issued a statement saying she would take legal action against the magazine.

Yesterday afternoon it appeared to be business as usual for the 58-year-old Pan, who had served as head of the Council of Labor Affairs since October 2012 and oversaw its transformation into the ministry earlier this year.

The ministry yesterday made public a recording made by Pan’s wife, who is on a vacation in France with their son, in which she said she was surprised to hear of his resignation and that she fully trusts him.

“[Pan] always tells me where he goes and I know about his meetings with the secretary. I know [her] personally as well,” his wife said.

The National Alliance for Workers of Closed Factories (全國關廠工人連線), who had demanded that Pan step down over his handling of several cases concerning the exploitation of workers and what it says are deteriorating working conditions, criticized Pan’s decision.

“Politicians are supposed to step down for bad policies,” not for their deeds in the private sphere, the group said in a Facebook post.

Pan is the second public official to resign over an alleged affair exposed by Next Magazine in the past three months. It published a story about former minister without portfolio Chen Shi-shuenn (陳希舜) in April that claimed the married Chen had made several visits to a female professor’s residence in 10 days.

Additional reporting by Shih Hsiu-chuan and CNA

EDITORIAL: Mom-and-pop shops versus 7-Eleven

Taiwan has one of the world’s highest densities of convenience stores. These stores can be found at almost every street corner, and it was therefore completely unexpected that the planned entry of the 7-Eleven chain to Orchid Island would set off a war of words.

Writer Liu Ka-shiang (劉克襄), entertainer Chris Wang (宥勝) and former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) have all expressed worries over the possibility that Taiwan’s last piece of pristine, convenience store-free land might disappear.

Liu has even expressed concern that the introduction of 7-Eleven would be the second disaster after nuclear waste was brought from Taiwan to Orchid Island.

The introduction of convenience stores to Taiwan proper more than two decades ago also set off a war of words. Hsieh, a legislator at the time, pleaded for the traditional mom-and-pop stores. He worried that they would be forced to close as chain stores with a lot of capital, marketing savvy and low procurement costs entered local communities.

There were also worries that this would lead to unemployment among older people, and that these mom-and-pop stores, which functioned as the heart of these communities, would disappear, and change the face of the local economy as well as these communities.

None of these concerns were enough to stop the march of the chain convenience stores. With the introduction of a chain store, one owner could replace thousands of grocery store owners, while tens of thousands of job opportunities were replaced by temporary workers on hourly pay.

The traditional community centers of information exchange, a neighborhood watch, social and friendly exchanges and emergency aid were replaced by formal transactions and exchanges.

When 7-Eleven enters Orchid Island, not only will the traditional mom-and-pop stores disappear, but so will central lifestyle values and the culture and language of the Tao people.

Many people may feel dismay at this, but time moves on and it is difficult to turn the tide. The conflict between the emotional attachment to traditional stores and the wish for convenience has already been decided: There are convenience stores everywhere, and the only places with room left for traditional stores are in remote areas.

7-Eleven is not an unstoppable beast, nor is it necessary to vilify it. The choice between convenience stores and mom-and-pop stores is not a moral choice; it is a lifestyle choice.

Whether Orchid Island will see its first convenience store will be decided by Uni-President Enterprises Corp, and whether it will be able to survive will be decided by the residents of Orchid Island. Any other opinion is only for reference.

However, the cost of operating convenience stores on the outlying islands is higher than in other places, and only one such store will be established on Orchid Island. Perhaps the same approach as in the rest of Taiwan — aimed at an all-pervasive presence — will not be applied here, so that the traditional stores might not be forced to close.

As 7-Eleven, with its strong marketing culture, enters Orchid Island, in addition to catering to the needs of tourists, perhaps the company should consider how to integrate with the Tao culture and lifestyle to minimize its impact on local culture.

Taiwan Labor Table 2.3

Notice how in South Korea, the high number of work days lost because of  labor disputes decreased because of oppressive government policies, but in Taiwan, there were consistently hardly any labor disputes or work days lost.

Anarcho-Syndicalism History and Prospective (in Mandarin) 1/2-18

Activist guilty in Miaoli shoe toss

By Loa Iok-sin  /  Staff reporter

Lawyers present a giant shoe to student movement leader Chen Wei-ting, left, in Miaoli County yesterday after he was found guilty and fined for throwing a shoe at Miaoli County Commissioner Liu Cheng-hung during a protest last year.

Photo: Chang Hsun-teng, Taipei Times

Student activist Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷) was found guilty yesterday of tossing a shoe at Miaoli County Commissioner Liu Cheng-hung (劉政鴻) in a protest last year and fined NT$10,000 (US$333) by the Miaoli District Court.

In September last year during a protest against Liu over the county government’s seizure and demolition of private homes in Dapu District (大埔), Chen tossed a shoe at Liu as he tried to stop the commissioner from entering the venue of a memorial service for Chang Sen-wen (張森文).

Chang’s home had been torn down by the county government. He was found dead in an irrigation channel a month after the forced demolition. It remains unclear whether Chang was murdered or committed suicide.

“I don’t think it’s a fair ruling, because Chen tossed the shoe at Liu to stop him from entering the venue for the memorial service, after Chang’s family stated clearly that Liu was not welcome, but he ignored it and still tried to go inside,” Lee Huan-yi (李宣毅), the attorney representing Chen in court, said outside the courthouse immediately following the verdict. “It was actually Liu who tried to force entry into a private home and interrupt a memorial service first; we therefore consider what Chen did as self-defense under the authorization of Chang’s family.”

“We regret that the judge was not convinced, and we will certainly appeal,” Lee added.

According to the written verdict, shoes are generally considered “unclean,” and therefore it would be a humiliation that causes harm to Liu’s dignity to get hit in the face by a shoe thrown by someone.

Chang’s widow, Peng Hsiu-chun (彭秀春), also showed up at the press conference to support Chen and the other activists.

“We never invited Liu to the memorial service and rejected his request to come to pay respects to my husband. We were actually quite upset when he tried to force his way into the building, escorted by the police,” Peng said. “If he didn’t insist, then nothing would have happened.”

In another case, the court acquitted Chen and six others who were said to be involved in an egg-throwing demonstration outside the Miaoli County Hall in August last year.

The court acquitted the seven defendants of humiliating a government office and violation of the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) for a rally outside the county hall that ended with the crowd throwing more than 3,000 eggs at the county hall building, while wounding three police officers.

The court said the egg-throwing occurred after 10pm, when the county hall was already empty, and therefore it caused no humiliation to any county officials.

It added that, since the rally ended peacefully soon afterward, it did not constitute a violation of the Assembly and Parade Act.