The government’s controversial amendments to the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) yesterday passed their third reading. It is a victory of sorts for the government, but the process has left many casualties, not least the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) credibility, employer-employee relations and workers’ rights.
After employers complained about a lack of flexibility in arranging work schedules, Premier William Lai (賴清德) decided to revisit changes made to the law only one year ago under his predecessor, then-premier Lin Chuan (林全). There are legitimate questions about whether employers’ issues with working hours impacting on costs were justified and whether the new amendments shifted the rules too much in their favor, at the expense of workers.