Working on 228 Peace Memorial Day, you should be paid double
New Taipei City Labor Affairs Department reminded all businesses that Feb. 28 (Friday) “Peace Memorial Day” should be a holiday given to employees based on Labor Standards Act. As long as an employer’s business was covered in Labor Standards Act, employees of that employer should be given a holiday based on the Act. For businesses operating with shift arrangements, if an employee and his/her employer both first agreed to swap “Peace Memorial Day” the holiday with another workday, there was no issue; however, when the employee could have a day off should be announced in advance to avoid his/her misunderstanding.
Labor Affairs Department Commissioner Xie Zhengda indicated that service industries of retail, catering, apparel and entertainment were often busier on a holiday. To serve the crowds coming for shopping on a holiday, an employer usually required employees to work on that holiday, but their pay for that day was not doubled, or the employer forced employees to have a day off during some other time. These were both wrong approaches.
Commissioner Xie explained complementally that some businesses often misunderstood that as long as they gave holidays to employees according to the calendar of public authorities, their approach was consistent with Labor Standards Act’s holiday provisions; however, this was a misconception. Xie indicated that according to the Enforcement Rule No.23 of the Labor Standards Act, workers should have a total of 19 holidays. However, on several days of the 19 days, employees of public authorities still needed to work. These days were such as the next day of the Founding Day of the Republic of China (Jan. 2), Martyrs Day (Mar. 29), Labor Day (May 1), Confucius’ Birthday (Sept. 28), Taiwan Retrocession Day (Oct. 25), Chiang Kai-shek’s Birthday (Oct. 31), Sun Yat-sen’s Birthday (Nov. 12) and Constitution Day (Dec. 25). Consequently, businesses should still give their employees holidays on above mentioned dates to obey the Enforcement Rule.
If an employer asked an employee to work on a holiday, the employer not only should first obtain the employee’s approval, but also should give the employee doubled pay for that day, or give the employee a day off during some other time after both the employee and the employee reached an agreement. In 2013 Labor Affairs Department seized businesses which did not appropriately give employees holidays, or forced employees to work on holidays, but did not give them doubled pay for their working hours. There were a total of 162 such incidents, accounting for 11.7% of total penalty cases. According to the Act, the fine could be up to NT$300,000, so businesses should not easily violate the Act. If you had questions about related attendance management and payroll affairs, please feel free to call 1999 or 29603456 ext. 6352 to 6359, or ext. 6361 to 6366 for protecting your own rights.