Legal Revisions Allow Unions to Stage Strikes via Balloting Directly

Taipei, April 17, 2009 (CENS)--Labor unions will be able to stage strikes with the approval of half of its members via unregistered balloting directly, without the need of convening a general assembly of union members as currently required, according to the draft revisions to the Labor Union Law and the Law for Handling Labor-Management Dispute, passed by the Executive Yuan (the Cabinet) yesterday (April 16).

The revisions also imposed the condition of "restrictive strike" on certain lines, whose unions can stage strikes only after having reached an agreement with the management for the continuing provision of necessary services during the strikes. These lines are those closely associated with the safety of the public's lives, national security, or key public interest, such as utilities; hospitals, financial information service handling inter-bank fund transfer; trading, settlement, and custody businesses for securities and futures; other payment-system businesses, and communications.

Management and laborers in the aforementioned lines can only resort to the arbitration of the regulators to settle their disputes.

Pan Shih-wei, deputy minister of the Council of Labor Affairs, remarked that in the future labor unions of the communications industry can stage strike only under the premise of maintaining continuing service for basic communications, including the emergent lines of 119 and 110.

Wang Ju-hsuan, CLA minister, noted that the legal revision will allow rapid settlement of labor-management disputes via arbitration, on top of the existing channels of mediation and law suit, thereby lowering the impact on industries. Ninety percent of 25,000 labor-management disputes last year involved labor rights and were resorted to law suit for settlement, according to Wang.