Fines, deductions and penalties

There are a few current posts talking about the legality of fines, deductions and penalties for various reasons. Here are some specific questions I hope to get answered that may help everyone.

  1. Are fines for lateness legal?

  2. Are fines for taking sick leave or personal leave legal?

  3. Is it legal to deduct an hours pay if you are late 5 minutes?

  4. Is it legal to require a person deduct a full hour of sick or personal leave time if they only take a half an hour leave?

  5. In the teaching world, is it legal to require a teacher pay their substitute out of pocket when taking allotted paid personal leave? It feels like this is not really personal leave because you end up paying for a sub, so in truth, there is no “paid” personal leave.

  6. Is it legal to deduct a days pay if the school has to provide the substitute, but that substitute does not get paid anything in addition to their normal salary because they did not exceed their normal contracted teaching periods for that week? (In this case, the school is pocketing the money.)

  7. Is it legal to require staff to stay on campus during a lunch break? If you leave for lunch, but come back on time, is it legal to fine for that?

If you are offered a contract with any of these listed and they end up being illegal, how likely is it that you could negotiate those items be removed for your specific contract? I would think if you asked for those to be removed or changed, then that company may rescind the job offer on the grounds you are making trouble before even starting the job. If you sign the contract knowing those things are illegal and later request those things not be enforced on the grounds of it being illegal, would you then be a target for not being rehired at the end of your contract? It seems like even if those items are illegal, there is not much that can be done other than passing on the job offer and hunting for a company that actually follows the law.

1 Like

I can’t answer those questions. One thing worth noting though is that AFAIK it is illegal to deduct punitive fines from contractual salary payments. Fines levied by HR need to be paid back to the company.

1 Like

If any and/or all of those are included in one’s contract, then yeah, they can enforce the bejeesus out of them.

That’s how contracts work.

Short of requiring one to actually commit a felony or misdemeanor, as long as one’s signed off on it, they’re well within their rights to enforce it with as heinous a set of penalties as they wish, since one has, that’s right, signed off on those too.

And, as you note, in most cases, the companies enforcing the most egregious of these limitations are often the biggest, most famous ones that everyone wants to work for.

I meself did 3 years at oneoftheworldslargestechcompanies.com, and there was practically no limit to how deep they’d f*** with one and one’s livelihood.

These included basic rules like, and I’m not making this up, hours and compensation being based on 2-hour increments, so if one swiped in more than 5 minutes late, BAM! one is docked 2 hours’ pay. Similarly, if one needed to leave early, even just 10 or 15 minutes, BAM! there goes another 2 hours’ pay.

They literally, blatantly contravened labour standards and, if challenged, would pretty much shrug and say, you don’t like it, then quit.

And I promise you, investigation and even punitive action on the part of the CLA were nothing to them.

The first time that I received less than my expected monthly pay, based on HR misinterpreting my performance and docking me accordingly, I went to my immediate supervisor, who, and I’m not kidding, said “If you want to go up against HR, go ahead, but you’re on your own, I want no part of it. Oh, and if you DO, I strongly suggest that you secure another position elsewhere first.”

Worst 3 years of my life.

4 Likes

I’m not very sure, but some of them may be invalid even if written in a contract and agreed by both parties.

so, they may need a union?

Highly doubtful.
But even if there are, making trouble over it will easily end up getting you tossed anyways.

PTSGI (biggest translation agency in Taiwan) do the same sort of sh*t:. Funnily enough though a few years ago there were sufficient aggrieved ex-employees that they were sued and they lost the case. Specifically over punitive salary deductions, or more specifically the need to pay back all bonuses if the employee quit before a contract had ended.

Sure.
When reading my above post, it’s important to keep in mind that the company shows 1.3 million employees worldwide with an annual revenue of US$ 131.82 billion

So they’re going to do pretty much whatever they friggin want.

So the lesson to be learned here is the vast majority of contracts are always in the employer’s favor. Companies will nickle and dime you to death with penalties and there is nothing you can do about it. All you can do is find a decent paying job, be on time and keep your head down. Do these and you will be fine.

Wow…no wonder why locals never challenge anything.

The only condition to that is that there are decent companies out there, yes, there really are, that aren’t run by the local f**kin equivalent of Somali slave traders, that have migrated their corporate strategy far enough into the 1980s to recognise that, holy cow, maybe a solid staff complement who are actually happy to be here and consider themselves well-treated might actually be an asset contributing to the company’s success.

Trust me, it happens.

Far enough into the 1980’s – I love it! :smile:

To answer Sui’s questions to the best of my knowledge:

Are fines for lateness legal?

If they’re proportional, they should be. There’s also the full attendance bonus. Here’s a legal quirk: if the monthly salary is only the Basic Wage (i.e. less than what most white collar foreigners earn), and the attendance bonus is included in the salary (so it’s not really a bonus), that’s still legal, but deducting the imaginary “bonus” is illegal (unless it’s proportional).

Are fines for taking sick leave or personal leave legal?

Under the Labor Standards Act (applies to most but not all jobs), you get a certain amount of paid sick leave, unpaid personal leave (事假), and other kinds of leave. The Act of Gender Equality in Employment further specifies some of it. A deduction for unpaid leave should be proportional, and if it’s paid or unpaid leave that’s required by law, you can’t lose your attendance bonus because of it.

Is it legal to deduct an hours pay if you are late 5 minutes?

That’s disproportionate, so the answer should be no.

Is it legal to require a person deduct a full hour of sick or personal leave time if they only take a half an hour leave?

Ditto.

In the teaching world, is it legal to require a teacher pay their substitute out of pocket when taking allotted paid personal leave? It feels like this is not really personal leave because you end up paying for a sub, so in truth, there is no “paid” personal leave.

The short answer is no. However, if it’s not statutory leave (under the LSA), I suppose it depends on what the contract says.

Is it legal to deduct a days pay if the school has to provide the substitute, but that substitute does not get paid anything in addition to their normal salary because they did not exceed their normal contracted teaching periods for that week? (In this case, the school is pocketing the money.)

Again, the answer should be no, but if it’s not a statutory requirement, and the contract says you need to pay for it, then I suppose you need to pay for it. Otoh, if the contract says you need to pay what it actually costs the school, and it doesn’t cost the school anything, then it’s :cow::poop:.

Is it legal to require staff to stay on campus during a lunch break? If you leave for lunch, but come back on time, is it legal to fine for that?

During an unpaid lunch break, not included in your 40 hour work week? That sounds dodgy. The fine sounds like more :poop:.

If you are offered a contract with any of these listed and they end up being illegal, how likely is it that you could negotiate those items be removed for your specific contract?

You can negotiate whatever you can negotiate. An illegal clause is an illegal clause, period, and it won’t stand up in court. The statutory minimum requirement trumps the contract. So for example, reducing maternity leave from eight weeks to four is illegal.

Now, an immoral but not quite unambiguously illegal clause, that’s tricky. So for example, a non-competition agreement (before the LSA was amended to address the issue) would typically be found illegal if it didn’t meet certain criteria such as adequate compensation, but the courts sometimes disagreed with each other about that. And when Civil Code Art. 247-1 comes up, the plaintiff may be asked for evidence that the defendant refused to negotiate about the immoral clause (assuming the defendant claims the plaintiff just didn’t want to negotiate).

I would think if you asked for those to be removed or changed, then that company may rescind the job offer on the grounds you are making trouble before even starting the job.

They would probably just make an excuse.

It seems like even if those items are illegal, there is not much that can be done other than passing on the job offer and hunting for a company that actually follows the law.

Keep searching for the promised land. :roll_eyes: :desert:

I had multiple very similar experiences in small to medium sized local companies (one was listed on the stock exchange).

The 5 mins late two hours docked is classic Taiwan . Many workers then just wait to hours to go in if they are late because why would you work for FREE after being punished …

I recall the sunken feeling of trying to interpret where the missing money went from my pay cheque on multiple occasions . Just spirit sucking. Rocket is not exaggerating in the slightest.

There is almost nothing worse than working hard
everyday , often with unpaid overtime and then seeing an employer f**k you on the pay cheque. Greedy swines. There was nobody to turn to either as your fellow co workers have accepted the same system as well and in most cases were already aware of the penalties. Anybody who goes on and on about how friendly and nice Taiwanese are has NEVER worked in a Taiwanese owned and operated company !!!
You can read all that rubbish from the temporary visitors to Taiwan

My experience is not from one company but MULTIPLE companies. Also my wife has encountered similar too.
Why did I put up with it? In those days it was very troublesome switching employers and I needed the work visa .

It’s why I will hang onto this job for dear life, great pay and so far very little interference from HR and owners and their ‘management’ systems. It’s a foreign multinational which helps. I also try to stay clear of local office politics but it’s not easy.

You’re right. I checked some stuff like this with somebody from the labour office and she pointed out that that clause was illegal.