On Feb. 11, 2017, Yun Yun, who had worked 13 and a half years in the D Logistic Company, was working extra hour in the office up until 4 a.m., as usual. As shown in a CCTV footage, after clocking out, Yun Yun left the office and stood alone in silence at the front door outside the office for around an hour before she decided to climb over a 120-cm tall wall to jump to her death from the 11th floor. She was not yet 40.
Eight months after her passing, a lawyer who has been working closely with Taiwan Occupational Safety and Health Link (Taiwan OSH Link) for years, contacted us in the hope that we can work together to help Yun Yun’s case. As we studied further into the case, we found Yun Yun joined the company as a secretary in 2003 and had done an excellent job before she was ultimately promoted to head the customer service department in 2013. As the head of the department, she was in charge of making sure that goods exported from Taiwan will successfully arrive their worldwide destinations.
On a daily basis, she clocked in at 9:30 a.m., and regularly clocked out around 10 p.m. Fridays were the worst. Yun Yun had to work overtime to the early hours of Saturday. She sometimes did not leave the office until dawn the next day. As we found out in her notebook, Yun Yun said she had no social life or recreation whatsoever as her demanding job had occupied almost every second of her life.
“Like living in hell, I could not eat nor sleep. I felt like I was letting everyone down, especially my employees.”
“Maybe I should quit my job immediately but no one could take the vacancy. I was doing a poor job, making everyone suffer. I felt extremely guilty for that.”
“I was tired. I was so tired. No one could see that I was going crazy? Could anyone save me from hell?”
“I missed myself in the old days when I was happy. Now I was like a nutcase. No one could save me, right? Yes, because I was the supervisor. I had to take full responsibility alone.”
“Please call my company at OOO if I did not show up at work.”
It’s somewhat sad and ironic that the last paragraph Yun Yun left before her death was asking people to call her company that she could not make it to the office.
High Standards on Work-related Health Hazard Determination
After Yun Yun’s death, her parents filed for occupational hazard compensation claim to the Bureau of Labor Insurance (BLI). The BLI, however, rejected the application citing the fact that Yun Yun’s parents did not present concrete evidence to prove that she was working under high stress nor evidence to support the claim that she was working overtime heavily that meet government’s compensation standards. The BLI even said Yun Yun’s working ability was highly appreciated by her company, citing the fact that she was promoted several times. “It was only natural that high ranking supervisor was facing higher pressure.” “No evidence to prove that Yun Yun was working excessively overtime. The psychological burden she was suffering in terms of work pressure, such as working overtime and lack of manpower to support her, was determined as in the mid-level and not high level. Therefore, her case not eligible to claim subsidy,” according to the BLI. Yun Yun’s family later appealed the ruling but was rejected again by the BLI.
Unsatisfied with the ruling, we continued to look for other evidences to present them to the BLI. We checked Yun Yun’s cellphone and found in her mailbox that she received more than 700 emails on a daily basis. The day before her death, we found 1,154 emails concerning her official duties in her mailbox. We used these email records as evidence to prove that she was under extremely high work pressure before her death and filled for appeal to the BLI yet again the appeal was rejected.
A Miracle of 8 percent: Administrative Court rules in favor or work-related suicide compensation claim
The last hope for Yun Yun was to file for administrative litigation to the High Administrative Court. The chance of winning such litigation was extremely low. Statistics have shown that among 3,470 administrative litigations filed at Taiwan’s three high administrative courts in 2019, only 291 or 8 percent of them, were later ruled in favor of people who filed for the litigation. That is why many people called Taiwan’s administrative courts as “court of rejection.”
After a year of review, High Administrative Court made a surprising ruling in 2019 in favor of our appeal while asking BLI to reinvestigate Yun Yun’s case. The judge made the ruling by quoting the testimony made by Yun Yun’s co-workers who said her department has always been the branch with the highest employee turnover rate in the company. The department has a turnover rate of as high as 70 percent as people in the department has to constantly work overtime. The demanding working hour means most new recruits would choose to leave the job. As a person with high sense of responsibility, Yun Yun often decided to do the job assigned to her employees herself in the fear that her subordinates would resign for unable to deal with the workload. Yun Yun was therefore on extremely high pressure, according to her co-workers. The judge made the ruling based on the huge amount of emails we found, the testimonies offered by Yun Yun’s co-workers, and the fact the she was later found working an extra of 118 hours the month before her death. After reviewing Yun Yun’s case as demanded by the administrative court, BLI ultimately determined that her family was eligible for claim for labor insurance as her death was deemed the result of occupational hazard.
Administrative Court rules in favor or work-related suicide compensation claim.
In fact, Yun Yun’s case is hardly an isolated incident in Taiwan. In modern era due to the change of styles of works as well as increasingly complicated working environment, people are inclined to feel heavier working pressure. The heavier pressure one feels in workforce means one is more inclined to suffer from mental illness associated with work. High work pressure also leads to the issue overwork death as well as depressions. In 2009, Taiwan issued a set of guidelines in which stipulate that work-related mental diseases were now eligible for compensation claim under the labor insurance. But since then, only 47 applicants had been determined of eligible for claim for labor insurance as of 2020. Also, only 7 cases of suicide had been ruled as related to occupational disease by Taiwan government since then. This shows that related authorities have been extremely reluctant in determining a worker is having mental illness due to his or her line of work.
The 2019 ruling made by the High Administrative Court is a surprising victory as it has shown that judge ruled in favor of those who suffer from work-related hazard. The judge believes the BLI has been too conservative in determining whether a kind of mental illness is related to a work’s job. According to the ruling, related authorities should be more flexible in determining an occupational hazard compensation claim, including work-related suicide, as such claim is not meant to find someone to blame but to provide compensation to victims of such hazard or their surviving families.
The judge also called on related authorities to make their determination from the perspective of the laborers to protect their rights. We applaud such ruling which is a major victory for the people and should serve as an example for future ruling. The administrative court has done a great job and we believe such exemplary ruling will also help to raise the public’s awareness on work-related health problem.
*Cherish your life, suicide won’t solve any problem. Give yourself another chance. Call the counseling center and ask for help.