Five-day Work Week May be Reality for All in Taiwan by 2016

Taiwan's Ministry of Labor (MOL) has recently drafted the revision of the Labor Standards Act to shorten maximum work hours in Taiwan to 40 hours weekly from the existing 84 hours biweekly, also increase  maximum overtime work to 60 hours monthly, which may be effective by 2016.

The Cabinet may review the draft by the end of 2014 to  complete the legislative process in 2015 for official implementation  in 2016.

Some 3.4 million employees on the island will benefit from the revision, with employers to pay  NT$29.4 billion (US$980 million)  yearly extra for overtime work.

Rarely reported but workers in Taiwan over the decades, despite the nation's achievement of "Economic Miracle," have taken for granted slavish wages, unpaid overtime work, and scant perks to have turned many lowly-educated entrepreneurs into swaggering  proprietors, resulting also in ever widening wealth gap. But such sweatshop conditions in Taiwan have also bred tacit, bitter labor-management relations that inevitably mask plentiful inside thefts, frauds and shoddy work.

Taiwan's employees enjoy 19 national holidays yearly, which will drop to only 12 once the two-day- off week becomes effective. Some workers in rural Taiwan still must work alternate Saturdays. (JL)