Some of my friends’ private schools have informed them that the 25th and 31st of October 2016 will be public holidays and that they don’t have to work on those days. Only thing is, my other friend’s wife can’t find any official government website citing those days as public national holidays. WTF? Guess I’ll have to ask my own company (not school) employer about it. Hope I get paid on these “new” pop-up holidays.
They’re following the Labor Standards Act.
http://law.moj.gov.tw/Eng/LawClass/LawAll.aspx?PCode=N0030002
President Chiang Kai-shek’s Birthday (October 31)
Taiwan’s Restoration Day (October 25)
This confuses people for a few reasons:
- Not all teachers are covered by the LSA. It depends on what type of “school” and what type of contract. (Buxiban teachers are covered.)
- Some employers use holiday swap agreements to move holidays to more convenient dates, which is legal.
- Some employers use holiday swap “agreements” that employees don’t actually agree to, which is illegal.
- Some employers don’t observe holidays at all, which is also illegal.
- Several holidays were canceled last year, effective Jan 1 this year, but the cancelation was decalred invalid later this year, so the holidays are back, but the government still wants to re-cancel them.
- Oct 31 was supposed to be canceled years ago for political reasons, but while it was removed from the non-LSA list of holidays (where it was only listed for ceremonial purposes), it remained in the LSA list, so the cancelation was ceremonial and, in practical terms, had basically no legal effect.
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That explains it all. You’re a superstar, dude. Thx.
Totally missed that today is a holiday. Should watch local news more often, I guess.
Me, too. I was waiting on a reply to an email this morning wondering why my customer wouldn’t reply to an urgent question. This is an official shambles.
What a treat to be in Taiwan celebrating Glorious Retrocession Day–not!
Guy