ICFTU report on core labour standards in Taiwan is being issued to coincide with its trade policy review at the WTO this week. It finds many restrictions to the effective application of these basic workers' rights in Taiwan.
This ICFTU report shows that despite the fact that the right to form and join trade unions is protected by law in Taiwan, there are still a lot of restrictions which limit their universal scope. Many employers have in practice dismissed labour union leaders without reasonable cause, taking advantage of the lack of legal penalties against this practice.
The report points out that even though collective bargaining is recognized by law in Taiwan's legislation, it is not mandatory and thus, very few workers are covered by collective agreements. The document stresses that those collective agreements signed are nothing more than the bare minimum stipulated by the labour law in force in Taiwan, and that the government can interfere directly in the internal affairs of trade unions.
The report underlines the issue of the right to strike in Taiwan. The law in Taiwan provides for the right to strike, although there are many restrictions that impede the effectiveness of this right in practice and consequently make it difficult to hold a legal strike, thus undermining collective bargaining.
The report identifies some attempts of the government to amend the labour law to reduce the right to strike yet further in the past few years. In that regard, the report warns that at the present time, the government is about to deliver new proposals to the Legislative Yuan (the de facto national congress) which if approved, would make it virtually impossible for any legal strike to take place.
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