Control Yuan asks government unit to take corrective measures over employee

On Aug. 18, 2021, Taiwan’s government watchdog Control Yuan[1]  announced the Corrective Measures[2]  and asked the New Taipei City Jinshan District Office to take corrective measures and demanded that the city’s government discipline personnel over negligence of duty resulting in death through overwork of former district office worker Chen Chia-wei (陳嘉緯) in 2020.

In the evening of Aug. 4, 2020, Chen, the 29-year-old manager of media relations and news announcements for New Taipei's Jinshan district, was found died at home by his family members. Before he passed away, he just uploaded the latest public schedule for the Jinshan office chief to the Facebook page he was responsible for editing. He returned home at around 7 p.m. and went into the bathroom to take a shower before he was found dead in the bathroom.

Before his death, Chen had worked an average of 89 hours of overtime per month for the six months prior to his death. In two of the past six months, Chen had logged more than 100 hours of overtime. Chen’s family also said he often worked until late night and was too busy to even have time to eat his lunchbox until late night in the same day. Ironically, such huge workload did not guarantee Chen a relatively high pay. Chen only had a meager monthly salary of NT$27,000[3]. It is extremely sad that a government unit paid such a low salary to its hard work employee.

Chen’s death had raised public concern over overwork issue in public sector. In response, Control Yuan members promptly launched their own investigations to the case. Nearly a year later, their probe results were released on Aug. 18, 2021, in which revealing a number of faults on the Jinshan District Office part.

1. Put Temporary worker in managerial role

Chen was first hired by the district office as a contract worker, not as full-time public servant, in November 2017. The office later repeatedly hired Chen as a fill-in for vacant positions, yet his work always focused on public relations, even after four transfers and five job titles in two years and eight months in office. His job titles, however, did not reflect the actual duty he was responsible for the office; which is to serve as a press secretary.

According to related regulations, contract workers of public sector cannot serve as managerial roles. But before Chen was hired by the Jinshan District Office, the press secretary position in the office was filled by its chief secretary, the office’s second highest ranking official. This shows that Chen was indeed performing duties in a managerial role as a press secretary even though he was only a contract worker. The office was apparently not following related regulations in asking a temp to take up heavy responsibilities as a manager.

2. Fail to protect its employee from overwork 

Even though Chen was hired as a contract worker instead of as a full-time public servant and thus he was not entitled to be protected under the Labor Standards Act, his employees still has to make sure Chen did not work overtime for a long period of time as stipulated in the Occupational Safety and Health Act. However, not only did the district office not offering measures to protect Chen from overwork, it allowed Chen to work overtime for a long period of time, ultimately leading to his death. This is a serious breach of protection obligation as stipulated in related laws on the part of the district office.

3. Face restriction on overtime pay but no restriction on maximum working hour 

Despite the fact that as a government contract worker, Chen did not enjoy the benefit of Labor Standards Act, he faced all of the restrictions of a civil servant in terms of overtime pay. However, current laws did not set a maximum working hour limit for civil servant. The lack of regulation means people working in public sector are likely to face overtime work issue, in particularly government’s contract workers. 

In general, the existing system and regulations tend to offer better benefits toward public servants than that of people working in private sector. However, many of these benefits come in the form of compensation afterward instead of preventing occupational hazard from happening beforehand. That is why similar tragedy continues to reoccur. To prevent overwork and other occupational hazards from happening, government needs to conduct thorough case study and analysis.

The Control Yuan asked the New Taipei City Jinshan District Office to take corrective measures and demanded that the New Taipei City government to discipline personnel over negligence of duty resulting in death through overwork of Chen and make amendment accordingly. Meanwhile, Control Yuan members also asked related government authorities to come up with measures to prevent public servants from overwork and from suffering from occupational hazards so that they will be better protected beforehand.

NOTE

[1] Control Yuan https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E7%9B%A3%E5%AF%9F%E9%99%A2

[2] Article 24 of the Control Act stipulates that the Control Yuan, after investigating the work and facilities of the Executive Yuan and its subordinate organs, shall propose corrective measures to the Executive Yuan or its subordinate organs for improvement after these measures have been deliberated and approved by the relevant committee meetings. After receiving the proposal, the Executive Yuan or related organs shall make improvement or take other actions immediately, and reply to the Control Yuan in writing. If the improvement is not made and the Control Yuan does not receive a reply in two months, the Control Yuan shall, through resolutions by its relevant committee meetings, question the organ in writing or summon the officials in charge for questioning.

[3] In 2020, Taiwan's minimum monthly wage was NT$23,800, and average monthly salary was NT$44,646.