Today is World Day for Decent Work (WDDW). The Taiwan Labor Front, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lin Yue-qin, and the Taiwan Youth Rights and Welfare Promotion Alliance held a press conference today to focus on youth low wages and union organization reform. They put forward three major demands, including establishing a low-wage and working poverty identification mechanism, lowering the threshold for union organization, and expanding cross-enterprise and cross-industry organizations and collective bargaining space, so that unions can become an important force in stabilizing employment and improving labor conditions.
Democratic Progressive Party legislator Lin Yueqin has pushed the Ministry of Labor to amend the "Youth Employment Preparation Plan" to include disadvantaged teenagers in school and add rural transportation subsidies and workplace experience subsidies. Lin Yueqin believes that the problem of low wages for young people can start with salary transparency. Next year, the minimum wage will be raised to 30,900 yuan. The gap with the current threshold of "salary disclosure is required for monthly salaries below 40,000 yuan" is getting smaller and smaller. The Ministry of Labor should adjust the disclosure threshold as soon as possible.
Please read on...
Lin Yueqin also pointed out that she has been working as a social worker for 30 years and is well aware that social workers and other jobs that support social operations are faced with work shifts, emotional labor and occupational safety risks, and they need to speak out through trade unions. Therefore, the government should support trade unions in establishing full-time manpower, and pay attention to front-line work experience in the policy planning process, and invite trade union representatives to participate according to experts and scholars.
Zhang Youjia, secretary-general of the Taiwan Youth Rights and Welfare Promotion Alliance, said that the problem faced by young workers is not only whether they can find a job, but also whether they can obtain reasonable income, development opportunities, and ways to participate in improving working conditions. In particular, young workers under the age of 18 have relatively limited work experience, rights information, and bargaining power, and they need more organizational support.
Zhang Fengyi, CEO of the Taiwan Labor and Social Policy Research Association, said that the union organization rate of Taiwanese employees has been below 10% for a long time, which is not only lower than Japan, South Korea, and the United States, but also far lower than European countries. In order to allow more young workers to improve working conditions through trade unions, the current trade union system of "single union" and "30-member threshold" must be reformed towards an economic negotiation-type trade union system of "multi-union" and "50% vote rate".
Zhang Fengyi advocated that the labor administrative agency can enter the enterprise to conduct secret ballots, and the union that obtains more than half of the votes becomes the union with negotiated representation, and the workers in the enterprise can join the union. This can reduce the obstacles for workers to join the union, further improve the union organization rate and collective bargaining ability, and allow for a more equitable distribution of economic results.
Secretary-General of the Taiwan Labor Front Yang Shuwei pointed out that Taiwan and the United States signed the "Taiwan-US Reciprocal Trade Agreement" (ART) this year, which has clearly included the protection of labor rights and interests. Taiwan must adjust laws and regulations related to labor freedom of association within five years after the agreement takes effect. This includes lowering the threshold for workers in small and medium-sized enterprises to form enterprise unions, lowering the threshold for organizing national joint unions, establishing appropriate mechanisms for union selection or dissolution, and ensuring the exercise of labor dispute rights.
