The Labor Safety and Health Act was amended and promulgated on July 3, 2013. The title of the Act has been changed to Occupational Safety and Health Act (hereinafter OSH Act) to expand the scope of protection to cover all workers. OSH Act will enter into force on July 3, 2014, in two phases.

    The first phase of enactment on July 3, 2014, includes measures that 41 existing subordinate regulations have already amended and promulgated accordingly. These new measures include:

1. Applicable subjects are expanded to include all industries by which the scope of protection covers employed laborers, self-employed workers, and other people engaged in work and directed or supervised by the responsible people in workplaces of all industries;
2. Strengthen the protection of laborers’ physical and mental health by which employers are required to adequately plan necessary safety and health measures to prevent overwork, mental stress, and musculoskeletal related disorders;
3. When laborers encounter potential imminent danger, they may exercise their rights to evacuation and withdraw to a safe location;
4. In view of today’s advancement in industrial communication devices that has allowed for more means to report accidents, the time limit for notifying major occupational accidents to a regional labor inspection institute has been shortened to 8 hours from 24 hours from the time the accident occurred. The shortening of this time requirement will allow the responsible authority to obtain the cause of the accidents quickly and provide laborers who suffered from the accident proper treatment and rehabilitation. (Occupational accidents notification website: insp.osha.gov.tw/labcbs/dis0001.aspx)
5. Clear stipulations to regulate the joint liabilities of original enterprises and the rights to conduct joint investigation of the occupational accident with labor representatives.   

    The Labor Safety and Health Act had been in force for a few decades since its original promulgation in 1974. Under the drastic changes in working environment that we have experienced in recent years, many of the regulations are no longer in line with social development. After many years of dialogue exchanges with related sectors, the new Act was finally passed by the Legislative Yuan. Since the new OSH Act has 58 subordinate regulations, the Executive Yuan approved its enactment in phases so that workers can benefit from the Act as early as possible. The first phase of enactment, which is to enter into force on July 3, 2014, is limited to revised provisions; whereas the second phase of enactment, to be enforced on January 1, 2015, is related to insertions of systems and measures.

New measures to be enacted in the second phase on January 1, 2015, include establishing certification system for machinery, equipment, and tools, registration and classification management system for chemicals, maternal health protection measures that take into account maternal protection and equal employment, and monitoring mechanism for conducting regular process safety assessments for high-risk businesses to manage and classify such risks at the source, for the improvement of a  safety and health workforce. Ministry of Labor stressed that the rights of laborers and factories are protected only when industrial safety is ensured. Labor inspection is but one of the strategic tools after the restructuring of the Occupational Safety and Health Agency (OSHA). Once the OSH Act is enacted, the Agency will adopt numerous strategic means to publicize, counsel, provide technical assistance to help businesses improve their safety and health facilities to achieve the goal of occupational accident prevention.

    To reduce the impact of the enactment of the Act on businesses, OSHA has drafted related administrative guidance for different business sizes and risks so that labor inspection institutions can have the appropriate accident prevention tools to help and monitor businesses to improve their safety and health setups. In addition, OSHA will be holding numerous awareness activities to help the public gain a better understanding of the 41 subordinate regulations to be enacted in phase one.