by Brian Hioe

語言:
English
Photo Credit: Ministry of Labor/Facebook

THE MINISTRY OF LABOR has come under fire for a workplace suicide. The suicide took place in the Xinzhuang Joint Office Tower in New Taipei, where the Executive Yuan has some facilities.

The controversy has become sufficiently large that after the controversy had gone on for some days, Minister of Labor Ho Pei-shan stated she would be willing to step down after being asked by a KMT lawmaker if she would be willing to resign over the incident during a questioning session in the legislature. Approximately a day later, Premier Cho Jung-tai stated that he would accept the resignation.

Specifically, a 39-year-old office worker surnamed Wu was found dead in the Xinzhuang Joint Office Tower. It is thought Wu killed himself.

The causes for Wu’s apparent suicide are thought to be workplace bullying, as well as the weight of responsibilities for being the only staff member who performed employment information services. Likewise, Wu was under significant pressure over being responsible for creating an employment services system.

Wu’s superiors have faced demotions, with Hsieh Yi-jung being dismissed as head of the northern regional office of the Work Development Agency (WDA). WDA director Tsai Meng-liang and two other officials have also received demerits. Outrage on social media has focused on Hsieh with accusations that she bullied Wu.

Nevertheless, Ho previously came under flak for stating that she did not have the authority to dismiss Hsieh immediately. Likewise, though Ho stated that there were issues with Hsieh’s management style, Ho also claimed that Hsieh was not the direct cause of Wu’s suicide. Ho stated that what led Wu to take his own life was the overwork and stress that he faced.

Ho’s comments outraged many members of the public because they were seen as an attempt to deflect blame from Hsieh. Some allegations in the media are that Ho may have acted to protect Hsieh due to powerful political backers. A video by Hsieh apologizing has not stemmed outrage.

Either way, most social responses have focused on the issue of workplace bullying. Certainly, this is an issue in Taiwanese companies and among public servants, as bound up with the hierarchical work culture that permeates Taiwanese society.

At the same time, it is true that Wu’s suicide also points to issues regarding overwork, not just bullying. After all, the only issue at hand which led Wu to take his own life was not only how he was treated by his superiors, but being the only person responsible for a number of important work tasks.

The Executive Yuan’s Xinzhuang Joint Office Tower. Photo credit: Yu tptw/WikiCommons/CC BY-SA 4.0

Chronic issues of overwork permeate Taiwanese society. According to statistics released in 2023, Taiwan had the sixth-longest working hours in the world in 2022. This was not much better in previous years, with Taiwan ranking as having the fourth-longest working hours in the world in 2019 and 2020. Cuts to public holidays under the Tsai administration, as well as the dismantling of twenty years worth of labor reforms, have not helped matters either.

It is to be seen if outrage over Wu’s suicide translates to broader calls for changes in Taiwan’s work culture, then, whether that is with regard to issues of workplace bullying or longstanding issues of overwork.

The issue does not seem to be an isolated case within the work culture of the Taiwanese government. Last year, a Taiwanese diplomat posted in Brazil committed suicide. A subsequent investigation suggested that workplace bullying was one of the key reasons for the suicide. As such, after the wave of outrage over more recent suicide, there have been further calls for accountability for this incident.

Civil servants in Taiwan are not allowed to unionize. Consequently, there have been a wave of calls in the wake of the suicide for such laws to be changed. Union groups such as the Confederation of Taipei Trade Unions, Kaohsiung Confederation of Trade Unions, National Federation of Teachers Unions, and Taiwan Federation of Financial Unions held a press conference to call for this.

KMT, DPP, and TPP legislators have also called for civil servants to be allowed to legalize, in a rare show of bipartisanship over an incident that might otherwise have simply become used for partisan mudslinging. It is to be seen whether this leads to a genuine shift in laws, however. In particular, if public servants are allowed to unionize, this raises questions of whether other public sector workers also not allowed to unionize, such as police officers, firefighters, and members of the military, should also be given the right to unionize. This may prove an obstacle to legal changes.

Legislator Hung Sun-han will now become the new Minister of Labor, while Wang Yi-chuan is to replace him as legislator. The DPP is likely hoping to stem the scandal by placing a high-profile politician in this position. Though Hung has a progressive record on labor, going back to his background as a left-wing environmental activist, it is to be seen if such changes take place under his tenure.

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