2017.6.16
Debby Yu
To accommodate the Partial Amendments to the Labor Standards Act, which were promulgated by the President on December 21, 2016, the Ministry of Labor promulgated Articles 2, 7, 11, 20, 20-1, 21 and 24 of the Enforcement Rules of the Labor Standards Act as amended, added Articles 14-1, 23-1, and 24-1~24-3 and deleted Articles 14, 23, 48 and 49 via the MOL-Lao-Dong-Tiao-Three-1060131269 Directive of June 16, 2017. In view of the larger scale of this revision, some revision highlights are provided below:
1. Irregular leave taken by workers is not included in the calculation of average wages.
Wage reduction as a result of normal sick leave, menstrual leave, maternity leave, family leave or tocolysis leave taken by workers and leave without pay are not regular work, since the workers only receive half of the pay or are not paid at all during such period. To protect workers’ rights and interests, Article 2 of the Enforcement Rules of the Labor Standards Act as amended is added with the new requirement that such period of reduced wages shall not be included in the calculation of the average wage period.
2. Periods of annual paid leave may be calculated pursuant to a negotiated agreement between the employer and the employee.
Article 24, Paragraph 1 of the Enforcement Rules of the Labor Standards Act as amended specifically provides that workers shall be entitled to annual paid leave if they meet the conditions under Article 38, Paragraph 1 of the Labor Standards Act. Meanwhile, the newly added Paragraph 2 provides that the employer and the employee may negotiate the right to calculate different periods of annual paid leave. Such calculation may be based on anniversaries from the date of employment or on calendar year (i.e., January 1 through December 31) cycles, academic years of educational institutions, fiscal years of business organizations or the year cycles agreed by the employer and the employee. However, if the annual paid leave is not completely taken upon expiration of the cycle agreed by the parties, Article 24-1 of the Enforcement Rules of the Labor Standards Act as amended provides that unfinished annual paid leave shall be converted into wages by dividing the wage for the normal work hours in the past month by 30 to arrive at the daily wage, which is then multiplied by the number of unfinished leave days. In addition, the employer is required to pay such wage to the worker within 30 days at the end of the year or upon termination of the employment contract.
3. Items and manners of provision that shall be specified in a wage statement provided to workers are specifically stipulated.
Article 14-1 of the Enforcement Rules of the Labor Standards Act as amended specifically provides that the calculation method and details about the wages paid to workers which an employer is required to provide the workers shall include the total wage, the amount of each wage component, and the amounts that the parties may agree to deduct pursuant to law such as labor insurance and national health insurance premiums. The above details provided by the employer may be provided in hard copies or transmitted electronically or otherwise made available to workers in readily available and printable materials.