"A migrant laborer’s payslip has been doing the rounds on Taiwanese social media recently, prompting fierce discussion among netizens who showed envy at the salary figure it revealed.
The sum… exceeded NT$60,000"
Many Taiwanese say they could never make that much, don’t collect overtime like the migrant workers, etc.
So how true is it? Because how is it that bosses can get away with not paying overtime to Taiwanese but OFW have to get overtime?
A Taiwanese would work for 30,000 a month and have to work overtime… with no additional pay. Maybe they get it all back in bonuses?
No legally they can’t. LSA says 8 hour days, 40 hours week
Then why do Taiwanese people on PTT make it sound like it’s what EVERY employers do to them? Why are they able to get away with not paying overtime to a Taiwanese but OFW must get it?
The employers, including mine , ask local employees to sign up to some bullshit ‘fake time management system’ to avoid any overtime payment . I’ve never received any overtime payment in Taiwan and I don’t expect I ever will. I mean I could insist on it but there’s going to be a bunch of repercussions (I have more flexitime type hours anyway ).
So what’s stopping everyone from insisting on it? This fake time management is illegal as hell.
Why does OFW get overtime? Do they complain more?
What do locals get in return for not getting overtime?
An hour overtime on a factory production line is obviously different to an hour overtime sat in an office pretending to be productive because that’s what everyone else does.
However, I think it would be positive if Taiwanese office workers started standing up for themselves, and each other, to end the desk-warming culture.
They 'encourage ’ the employees that everyday has 8 hours and it adds up to 40 hours. 
They didn’t say you couldn’t put in the real hours but ‘encourage’.
To encourage us to use the fake numbers it comes with a prepopulated number with clock in and out times , up to you whether you adjust it to the true hours.
The Taiwan HR managers spend a lot of time discussing with each other how to get around the labour laws which increases costs for employers.
so if they fail to do what they were encouraged, then what? fired for BS reasons?
Why do bosses want their workers to stay in the office if they aren’t working? Just send them home then.
Or maybe Taiwanese should just work OFW jobs…
It is my experience that everyone, regardless of nationality, loves to whine about work but do nothing about it.
It has also come to my attention that most Taiwanese do not know their rights. In the US, OSHA requires posters to be put up where employees can see them, like in bathrooms or break rooms. You have few rights as a salaried employee in the US, but people working in fast food and high school kids can easily see what their rights are, often on the bathroom stall door. When I bring up that unpaid overtime is illegal, my coworkers (Taiwanese and not) all say that the contract they signed says they will not be paid overtime. They have a difficult time grasping the fact that a contract that forces you to accept law-breaking is not enforceable in court. But they dare not speak up for fear of not having a job at the end of the day. So the cycle continues. The LSA is the bare minimum standards for all workers in Taiwan, but the overwhelming majority of workers in Taiwan don’t understand that it probably applies to them and action would be taken if they just spoke up
Well, then if most employees will ONLY accept hourly work, then that’s one problem solved.
I never accepted salaried jobs in the US for this reason. Salaried workers get paid more, but they have to be on call all the time.
Minimum salary in the US isn’t high either. It’s something like 27,000 a year.
That’s technically correct, but only if you go with worker = what the LSA says it means. Some employees and most non-employees don’t meet the definition of worker, so they’re excluded.
Also, workers who fall under LSA Art. 84-1 have lower minimum standards than regular workers.
Getting back to the OP, it has often been noted that many migrant workers are not subject to the LSA because they have jobs that are not covered by it.
If the salary really is 60k per month, it’s not necessarily because of overtime. It may be because the person has a job requiring higher/rarer skills than the average blue collar job.
Iiuc that varies a lot by state.
yea, probably blue states have higher salaries while red have lower… Federal min wage is really bad considering it’s the US and costs are sky high, still 7.25 an hour, you really can’t live anywhere in the US except some small town (where min. wage is all you’ll ever get) on that wage. Plus Taiwan’s 160nt per hour wage is really catching up to that 7.25.
But Taiwan’s LSA seems to be full of loopholes, or ways it does not apply to you, etc., likely intentional. I get the sense Taiwan government generally protect the owner class more than the worker class.
Well that’s annoying. Who’s a worker then? Cuz technically teachers in private schools aren’t, but I called the LSA about my problems and they said it applies to me
Not that many salaried jobs actually require you to be on call, and many that do don’t require it all the time.
Generally around $35k min for salaried.
And let me blow your mind - I’m salaried, but I get ot if I work past a certain number of hours a week.
Sorry, let me clarify. 勞工/worker legally means a person who works for an employer (what would otherwise in most cases be called a 受僱人/employee) under a 勞動契約/labor contract, which means under the Labor Standards Act. The definitions are in LSA Art. 2 Subpar. 2 and 6, but because the LSA doesn’t apply universally, the primary indicator of whether or not someone is a worker is actually whether or not the business entity falls within the scope of LSA Art. 3, the article that lists the applicable industries, and when it’s Art. 3 Par. 1 Subpar. 8 you need to scour the MOL’s website to find the list of everything in the “other” category, which includes buxibans. It annoyingly also includes private schools but not all private school teachers. 
An employee is usually a worker and vice-versa, but not always.
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