Introduction of Overwork Issues in Taiwan

Uidy Kao

AUG 2020

“Someone would work to death! But I don’t want to be that person, it is a pity!”

This statement was found in the MSN chat history of a victim of Karoshi that we have assisted. She died due to brain hemorrhage on her way home, two weeks after she said that with her friend. On her computer desktop, there was a CV which was just edited three days ago. She was pressured to death before she was able to send out the call for another job. This case is sadly not unique and overwork has long been ingrained in Taiwanese society.

The issue of overwork is a particularly prominent cultural phenomenon in East Asian countries. Around the world, only Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan include overwork-related cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases (CCVDs) into the scope of occupational disease compensation.

In recent years, the cases of overwork-related disorders have been emerging in Taiwan. According to the statistics from Bureau of Labor Insurance, between 2011 to 2019, a total of 679 workers were recognized as work-related CCVDs, including 236 cases of death and 173 permanent disability.

Overwork has become an important occupational hazard. Every eight days, there will be 1 worker suffered from serious casualty due to overwork. However, the figure was merely a tip of the iceberg, as there were many hidden cases that were not approved for occupational disease recognition due to difficulties of providing working time proof or not insured in accordance with the law.

Recognition guidelines for CCVDs

Looking back at the historical background of the identification of overworked diseases in Taiwan, as early as 1991, the first version of the guidelines for recognizing work-related cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases was announced. However, CCVDs was not on the official list of occupational diseases, so suspected cases were decided for compensation case by case. Besides, the criteria for recognition was very strict. Only the onset of CCVDs at the workplace could be recognized as work‐related, and only the workload during the period right before the CCVDs event was considered. As a result, the identification of the first case was not passed until 2006.

Since then, the guidelines were amended several times. The biggest changes were made in 2010 because of a Karoshi case. His name is Hsu Shao-pin (徐紹斌), who worked at Nanya Technology Company. He was found dead in an early morning when his father went to check him in his room after he did not leave the room to work. He was only 29. He regularly worked over 12 hours a day and sometimes 16 to 19 hours. His overtime hours were 111.5 hours during the month prior to his sudden death. His family believed he died of overwork and applied for labor insurance compensation. However, he was found dead in his own house not in his office. His company also denied that he regularly work overtime before his death. At last, his family’s application for compensation was denied.

Hsu’s family came to our office, asking for help. Together we held a press conference to raise the government’s attention on this matter. The incident also drew wide support toward Hsu’s family in Taiwan society. Under huge pressure, Taiwan’s ministry of labor later announced modification to the recognition guidelines, learning from the Japanese regulations. It was made easier to meet the criteria.

Following the amendment, the next year in 2011, a total of 88 cases received compensation as work-related CCVDs. The number was 2.6 times more than before the guidelines’ revision.

The prevailing long working hours in Taiwan were an important factor resulting in rising overwork-related diseases. Taiwanese worked the fourth-most hours in the world in 2018, according to a Ministry of Labor report.  The average number of hours worked in Taiwan last year was 2033 hours. According to OECD statistics, only Singapore, Mexico, and Costa Rica worked longer. Taiwanese also worked far longer hours than Japan, USA, Canada, France, Germany, and UK. Compared to German, Taiwanese even worked 84 days more. The governmental official explained that Taiwan has a relatively smaller part-time work force, which currently stands at about 3 percent of the total. As a result, the country has more people working full time which increases average working hours. However, such explanation neglected that still a big number of workers work extremely long hours and cases of Karoshi were reported frequently.

Aside from the working hours shown by the statistics, there were also some hidden working hours that were not counted in, such as working overtime by using Email or communication software. By law workers are not allowed to do more than 46 hours of overtime each month. In reality many employees were required to work overtime not abiding by the law.

Many employers have been making profits by reducing cost for human resources. While the workforce is insufficient, the working conditions become worse. The employees are required to finish more work, and thus need to work overtime regularly. Besides, as overtime pay is counted from only the basic salary (not including bonus or other additional payment), the regulation is not effective to prevent employees from working overtime. Instead of recruiting more workers, the employers would rather make the existing workers work overtime and pay them the very limited overtime pay.

Reduction of human resources cost may also result in more low-paying jobs. The wage growth rate of young workers has stagnated in the past decades. Statistics from the Ministry of Labor in 2015 revealed that starting salary for young graduates with a university and technical college degree was NTD$27,655 and NTD$25,119 respectively, which was even lower than 15 years ago (NTD$28,016 and NTD$24,824). Although the figure has become slightly higher in recent years, in 2017, workers between 20 and 24 earned just 91 percent of what they were earning in 1999 when inflation was taken into account. In order to survive, many employees need to work several jobs or work overtime for additional payment. The overwork phenomenon in Taiwan was actually aggravated by the stagnant wages.

Mental Disorder

Other than work-related CCVDs, in recent years, more and more people suffered from work-related mental disorders. In 2009, guidelines for recognizing work-related mental disorders were established. But since then, only 36 applicants were approved for compensation. Most of these cases were patients of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after occupational injuries. But in fact, a rising number of workers in Taiwan are suffering from mental illness due to other factors, including long working hours; extreme pressure from work; sexual harassment at workplace; and workplace bullying. There are only 7 cases of suicide due to overwork. But they all lack enough evidence to support their claims while applying for compensation.

This year, burnout was included in the World Health Organization's 11th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) as an occupational phenomenon. It showed that mental health at the workplace has received global attention, and we should also strive for better improvement in Taiwan. 

Also, since 2009, only seven cases of suicide were recognized as work-related by Taiwanese government. The first case happened in 2012. The victim’s name is Chang Pei-fong. Chang was in charge of occupational safety at Formosa Plastic Group in Yunlin County. He was required to monitor the occupational safety of a construction site in the plant and the contractor responsible for the project was not following the safety regulations. Chang tried to report the case to his supervisors but he was told to turn a blind eye toward the issue so that the construction project could complete on schedule. Under huge pressure, Chang, on Oct., 2011, jumped to his death from a 25-meter-high platform, just one week before his scheduled wedding. He was 29. Before his death, he sent a text massage saying that "I couldn't live up to the government, the company or safety requirements, and that I felt terribly sorry for the company and wanted to take responsibility by killing myself."

Taiwan’s labor authorities later determined him as the nation’s first case of work-related suicide. 

Although diseases attributed to heavy workload were compensable in Taiwan, the target diseases were limited to cardio-vascular diseases, cerebral-vascular diseases, and mental disorders. In fact, the adverse health risk of poor psychosocial work characteristics was even more diverse. For example, chronic fatigue might compromise the ability to pay attention, and further induce occupation injury or accidents. The TransAsia Airways crash in 2014 and Iris Travel Service coach crash in 2017 both caused serious casualty, and report showed that burnout of the worker and violation of labor act might play an important role. Regrettably, many workers were not able to rest and have holidays even when they were ill or tired. Overwork and burnout may also influence work-family balance, birth and divorce rate, interpersonal relationship and etc.

As many cases keep happening, OSH Link has published a book in 2015. The title of the book is “Taiwan, an island of overwork,” in which we recorded the stories of many Taiwanese who died of overwork and discuss the overwork issue and why it happens. After its publication, we are glad to see that Taiwan’s Ministry of Labor was asked to report to lawmakers regarding overwork, raising more concern on the issue. Later that year, lawmakers amended related laws to reduce total maximum number of work hours to 40 hours per week from 84 hours every two weeks.

What we do are just some tiny steps to make changes to the overwork issues in Taiwan. We will continue to fight for all workers to protect their safety and labor rights.