2017.6.16
Debby Yu
Flexible work hours mean that subject to the consent of the labor union or, in the absence of a labor union for a business organization, to an agreement reached in a management-employee conference and within a specific period of time on condition that the total work hours remain unchanged, a worker’s work hours in certain days during this period may be allotted to other work days due to business or other factors, even though the work hours during such period are normal work hours for which the employer is not required to pay any overtime. The Labor Standards Act stipulates two-week, four-week and eight-week flexible work hours. To carry out the legislative objectives for work hour flexibility, all sectors which have been designated to be subject to the Labor Standards Act since March 31, 2003 can implement a two-week flexible work hour. However, only sectors which may adopt four-week or eight-week flexible work hour pursuant to law may leverage the flexible work hour, and it is not true that all sectors can directly adopt four-week or eight-week flexible work hours.
The Ministry of Labor issued the Lao-Dong-Three-1060131010 Circular of June 16, 2017 to announce that “the bottled liquefied petroleum gas wholesaling sector in the oil product and fuel wholesaling industry and the bottled liquefied petroleum gas retailing sector in the other fuel wholesaling industry are designated to be governed by Article 30-1 of the Labor Standards Act (i.e., four-week flexible work hours).” In short, with the consent of a labor union or, in the absence of a labor union in the business organization, an agreement reached in a management-employee conference, normal work hours in four weeks (i.e., 160 hours) may be allotted to other working days to the extent that such allotment shall not exceed two hours each day, and that a worker shall be entitled to at least two-day regular holidays every two weeks and eight regular holidays and rest days every four weeks.
In addition, the Ministry of Labor also issued the Lao-Dong-Three-1060131086 Circular of the same date to announce that “the freight forwarding sector is designated as a sector governed by Article 30, Paragraph 3 of the Labor Standards Act (i.e., eight-week flexible work hours),” even though the freight forwarding sector does not include sectors which are part of the storage and distribution industry. In short, with the consent of a labor union or, in the absence of a labor union in the business organization, an agreement reached in a management-employee conference, normal work hours in eight weeks (i.e., 320 hours) may be allotted to other working days to the extent that the daily normal work hours shall not exceed eight hours and the total weekly work hours shall not exceed 48 hours with at least one regular holiday for workers every seven days and at least 16 regular holidays and rest days every eight weeks.