As the Lunar New Year is approaching, annual repairs and rushed work of business units are relatively frequent, along with the increasing risk of occupational disasters. The transportation industry and retail sales are in their busiest periods as well. Due to the prolonged working hours, workers are prone to overwork. In order to urge business units to reinforce the disaster prevention work before and after the Spring Festival and to abide by the relevant regulations on the prevention of overwork, the Ministry of Labor and the local industry competent authorities jointly implemented a spring festival joint safety inspection in the three regions of North, Central, and South today (20th). Through the cooperation between the central government and the local authorities, they’ve jointly shown care for the safety of workers in the workplace. The MOL also called on business units to ensure that all safety measures and occupational safety and health management are implemented, and make appropriate arrangements for workers on overtime hours, overtime payment, rest and vacation issues, etc.
In this joint inspection, Minister of the MOL Hsu Mingchun, Deputy Minister of Labor Liu Shihhao and Lin Mingyu, and Vice Minister Lin Sanquei led the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and inspectors from local inspection agencies, along with industry competent authorities of Ministry of Transportation and Communications, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Pintung County Government, New Taipei City Government and Miaoli County Government, to implement the joint inspection, focusing on transportation operators prone to have overtime work and overwork issues, as well as power plants, petrochemical plants, and major public construction with high occupational disaster risks. Among inspection, Banqiao Bus Station (United Highway Bus, Kuo-Kuang Motor Transportation, CitiAir Bus, Capital Bus, HO-HSIN Bus Traffic, Kamalan Bus and Aloha Bus) has 14 violations in total, which were mainly about failure to deploy occupational safety and health personnel and implement in-service training, failure to take preventive measures on conditions that workers get sick due to abnormal workload, workers’ working hours are longer than the statutory requirements, and workers not having one mandatory day off out of every 7 days; Linkou Power Plant has a total of 13 violations and 2 shutdowns, which were mainly due to inadequate protective measures for contract management, falling, electric shock, being pinched, and being rolled; Changchun Petrochemical Miaoli Plant has 11 violations and 1 shutdown, which were mainly due to inadequate protective measures for contract management, falling, being pinched and rolled; the main construction of the tender case number CL121 Chaozhou Rail Yard has 33 violations and 6 shutdowns, which were mainly due to inadequate protective measures for contract management, falling, collapsing, being pinched and rolled (the inspection results are shown as attachments); for violations of the Labor Standards Act, fines ranging from NT $ 20,000 to NT $ 1 million can be imposed for each violation; for violations of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, fines can be imposed up to NT $ 300,000 for each violation. All violations will be punished according to the law.
Minister of Labor Mr. Hsu said that the purpose is not to penalize, but it is a reminder for employers to ensure the improvement of labor safety, especially after the visit to the Chaozhou Rail Yard. It is worrisome seeing many foreign migrant workers far away from home, spending their time and energy devoted to the construction. She also calls on employers to treat migrant workers as their own family members, and to maintain the safety and hygiene of facilities and management, so as to ensure the safety of everyone including migrant workers. At the same time, he hopes that foreign migrant workers can be exposed to a positive work atmosphere.
The Ministry of Labor pointed out that in order to prevent dangerous situations caused by negligence of work safety because of annual repairs and rushed work of high-risk industries, and to prevent the increasing risk of overwork caused by the increase in working hours due to the busy business season, since January 3, the MOL has implemented “Plan for Reinforcing Labor Inspection during the Spring Festival of 2020” (2020.1.3-2020.2.10) for a period of 39 days, mobilizing labor inspection personnel throughout the country to carry out spring festival safety inspections. The plan includes at least 3,300 inspections and more than 30 sessions on safety and health education training and announcement, reinforcing and urging business units to strengthen the disaster prevention of high-risk operations, put self-management into practice, and abide by the relevant regulations on overwork prevention, so that all workers can return home happily and safely to get together for the New Year and enjoy the holidays.
