Taipei, May 8, 2008 (CENS)--The Legislative Yuan (the Congress) recently passed the third reading of the revision to the "labor protection law" to restrict departure of employers that willfully shut down businesses, owing wages, severance pay or pensions to employees.

The "labor protection law" has been effective for five years but some of its articles are sufficiently vague to allow employers to exploit loopholes. To better protect the rights of employees, the Cabinet-level Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) therefore decided to revise the existing law, which stipulate that employers are liable if they dismiss workers en masse within two months and owe certain amounts of wages.

Abusing the vagueness of such laws, some ill-willed employers have refused to pay employees and also denied closing operations, often a tactic used to evade corporate duties to handle troubled enterprises.

The law originally defined the so-called "massive layoff" as an enterprise with 200-500 staffers that dismiss one third of such employees within 60 days, but the new version has changed the one-third to one-fourth. Besides, the revised law protects both contract and non-contract employees. If an enterprise is officially recognized as having closed, then employees can terminate their contracts with employers to ask for severance pay.



(by Judy Li)