Anti-discrimination Protection in Taiwan Constitution

Better yet, up until Obamacare in 2014, most individual plans excluded maternity care.

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It seems like much of the ESA only relates to Taiwanese citizens? The use of “nationals” in there is pretty conspicuous, especially in the first few articles.

Every national is free to choose his/her occupation unless otherwise is prohibited or restricted by the law.

foreigners could be included in the subjusts of anti discrimination protection.

but, when they say disabled in the act, it means people with disability certificate issued from roc, which cannot be issued to foreigners except for few japanese, as far as i know.

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Do you have a source for this part?


ETA: See below.

I’ve looked into it a bit further and am afraid you may indeed encounter 差不多主義 in this area.

The way it works in Canada and iiuc also the US is basically this: once the employee proves the disability exists and requires accommodation, the onus is on the employer (or service provider if the relevant anti-discrimination law applies in that context) to prove that the accommodation would cause undue hardship and therefore should not be imposed on it. So for example if the accommodation would be installing an elevator, a large company can probably afford to do it whereas a small one probably can’t, ergo the smaller and poorer a business entity is, the more likely the undue hardship defense is to succeed.

As for Taiwan, I haven’t looked at judicial decisions, but the closest I can find in legislative and executive rules is this:

https://laws.mol.gov.tw/FLAW/FLAWDOC03.aspx?searchmode=global&datatype=etype&mode=007&no=FE366135

TLDR: If after adjusting the content of the job duties and the work environment, the disabled person still is unable to perform the job, it doesn’t count as a violation of ESA Art. 5 (discrimination) or PDRPA Art. 38 Par. 2 (failure to meet the quota).

(Technically, it only says it doesn’t violate the quota part, but discrimination under the ESA is cited as one of the ways in which a violation could occur, so it seems like it’s not a leap of logic to presume they would use the same kind of thinking in assessing a discrimination complaint, with no standardized criteria to evaluate whether or not the proposed adjustments are sincere or just window dressing.)

Some good news though:

https://laws.mol.gov.tw/FLAW/FLAWDOC03.aspx?searchmode=global&datatype=etype&no=FE296792

TLDR: Thanks to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, you don’t need a “disability identification” (身心障礙證明) to file a discrimination complaint.

Btw you may also want to look into laobao and jiubao benefits.

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Thanks for digging deeper! My concern currently is that I notified everyone about extremely minor accommodations I would need going forward, in August. When I say “extremely”, we’re talking “in no way inconveniences anyone and places no burden on the employer”, equivalent to someone wearing glasses or a hearing aid, basically “none of anyones’ effing business”.

Yet, when I met with my boss to discuss some random things (minor observations) last week, the only and very direct criticism of my ability to do my job lately was “its not fair to others that you [insert accommodations that I said I would need two months ago]”. I explained that I had said this was something I needed, per multiple doctors’ recommendations, and that I had notified the team as such. Yet I kept getting an equivalent of “you’ve made a separate set of rules that only apply to you and that’s not fair to anyone” type response. I reworded what I said so many times, but my boss just reworded what he said right back. It seems this is the hill he wants to die on.

I have no interest in a lawsuit, but I do sense that the next meeting we have about my performance will once again bring up the same (would be illegal in the US and Canada) complaints against me for needing accommodations. So I’m trying to arm myself with as much information as possible about Taiwan’s laws in this situation. If I can say “I have made it clear that I need these to accommodate my disability. Keep bringing this up as a criticism of my ability to do my job and I’ll see you in court for a violation of xyz”, I figure he’d back off pretty instantly. But it really looks like there’s nothing i can cite that he’s doing that’s actually illegal — seems sufficiently grey that I’d probably end up with more trouble for myself for bringing up the law in this case.

I’m curious what laobao and jiubao benefits someone with a relatively minor disability would qualify for? For the most part, I can still walk unaided, which means I can work (and do my job) just fine. I have very little control over what happens to me in the near and longer future, however, which is why I want to better understand disability protections here.

Not being familiar with disability benefits, I would assume that if you lose your job because of a disability you would qualify for something, and if it wasn’t really because of the disability but because your boss wanted an excuse to get rid of you, you could still presumably cite a written statement from your employer that you lost your job because of the disability.

You can cite the Act to Implement the CRPD (that Tando linked to above), as it theoretically gives the CRPD including Art. 27 the force of domestic law, but strictly speaking the onus there is on the government to fix the problem. When dealing with your employer, I think ESA Art. 5 and PDRPA Art. 16(?) are what you need, and you can throw in the CRPD as a kind of booster, along the lines of the government considers existing laws to be in harmony with the CRPD (or else it would have made a new law by now), so you need to read the ESA and PDRPA with the CRPD in mind.

Beyond that and the line about “調整職務內容及工作環境”, I can only suggest citing judicial precedents, which of course won’t be binding because this is Taiwan (except when they come from the Council of Grand Justices), but they can still be persuasive.

If I were in your position I would talk to a lawyer. Let us know how it works out! :four_leaf_clover:

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did you provide any official document from a doctor? if noy yet, it might help.