Business Leaders Criticize Gov’t’s Lack of Good Faith over Holidays

 Business Leaders Criticize Gov’t’s Lack of Good Faith over Holidays

Source: All Taipei Newspapers

June 24, 2016

The current session of the Legislative Yuan (LY) will go into recess on July 15, so the LY does not have enough time to amend the relevant laws to stipulate a nationwide 5-day workweek. Consequently, September 28, Confucius’ Birthday and Teacher’s Day, would be the first of the seven reinstated holidays to be observed chronologically. However, the restoration of the seven holidays received negative feedback from industry groups, which reportedly plan to hold a joint press conference on June 27 on Monday to denounce the government for going back on agreements reached between labor and the industries during previous negotiations.

Lin Por-fong (林伯豐), Chairman of the Taiwan-based Chinese National Association of Industry and Commerce (工商協進會), stated that industry groups did not intend to make a fuss about having an extra day-off this September 28 for Teacher’s Day, adding that they instead wanted the government to emphasize the outcome of negotiations and to expedite the revision of relevant laws before this coming October. Otherwise, Lin asked, how could the people trust a government that lacked good faith in negotiations?   

Lin went on to say that it was ridiculous that laborers could enjoy a day-off on Teacher’s Day while teachers themselves could not. Lin called on the government to set consistent criteria so that teachers could also enjoy a day-off on Teacher’s Day.   

Tsai Lian-sheng (蔡練生), secretary-general of the Taipei-based Chinese National Federation of Industries, admitted that the positions of labor and management would never be the same, but the restoration of the seven controversial public holidays clearly demonstrated the lack of good faith of the administration and the Legislative Yuan as they placed no importance on agreements previously reached between labor and management. Tsai thus expressed concerns that labor-management relations would only get worse in the future.   

Lai Cheng-yi (賴正鎰), Chairman of the General Chamber of Commerce of the Republic of China (ROCCOC, 中華民國全國商業總會), stressed that it was not a big deal to allow labor on additional day off; instead what was more important was to consider both the interests of labor and the competiveness of enterprises. If the labor group always had the final say, there would be no point in industry groups engaging in negotiations with labor in the future, Lai concluded.  

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