Overtime: an unpaid fact of life, or

Legal Legal - Work
1

What is the deal with overtime in Taiwan?
To my mind, overtime in a production scenario can only be due to bad management. Fickle clients & last minute orders notwithstanding. Are the lines of production so skewered here that unscheduled overtime is oft par for the course?
I ask this as many people’s job seems to require that they put in an unduly inordinate amount of unpaid hours, including running errands.
Just curious,

[n.b.: post edited for objective reasons…i.e, non specific
TGM, 06/21/2008]

2

That’s how you get it done on the cheap. Why hire more workers when you can wring the last bit of life out of the miserable saps already in your employ?

Bastards.

3

[quote=“Dragonbones”]That’s how you get it done on the cheap. Why hire more workers when you can wring the last bit of life out of the miserable saps already in your employ?

Bastards.[/quote]

Don’t blame it all on the employers. The workers are too timid to oppose or too apathetic to organize.

4

I worked as a financial analyst once. If you define overtime as work done above and beyond say 40 hours per week, then I was working on overtime at least 1/3 of the time I was there.

However the pay package reflected this. I dod not feel unduly abused by them, especially when driving the company provided SUV to and from work.

So it depends.

5

I’m pretty sure in general you are expected to do overtime and not get paid for it at a lot of jobs, sadly.

I really think it’s quite hard-wired into the culture and not a part of “weakness”.

Usually it is understood, or explicitly said, that you can go home when you are done your tasks, which is such BS, because you could have been given an ridiculous amount of things to do.

It’s not a good state for office workers here.

However, Taiwanese companies didn’t go from selling nick-nacks in Cheerios to HTC Touch’s in twenty years by collecting pogey.

6

Now, if you have overtime, the rules are like this.
The law states that overtime compensation is tax free (gov pages), 46 h/month is allowed and the compensation per hour is calculated: Monthly basic salary/30days/8hx1,33, or monthly salary/180. Different formulas but the same result.
There are certain rules that you can’t work more than x hours/week so you have to spread out the hours over the whole month.
I even have a higher overtime compensation than in the formula, still tax free, it is the hours that counts.
It has worked for me over one year now.

7

Taiwan does not suffer from lack of ‘rules/laws’…the problem is interpretation and enforcement.

Threats of dismissal and co-worker jealousy and gossip proves very effective in the Taiwanese workplace to curb claims of ‘pay for overtime.’
I’ve seen this repeatedly here on the island. The peer jealousy/gossip tool is used a lot.

8

People believe they must work longer than the contract says as this is an expectation, so they stretch out their work to fill in the day. The management accepts this as a reality and everyone kinda gets on with it.
You get punished i.e never get a pay raise, ostracized by other employees on the behest of management, no bonus etc, for working overtime and requesting payment for it, and you get punished for getting the job done too early, finishing up and going home at some reasonable hour.

Therefore you have to sync up, get the rhythm and the pace, work the time that is expected, kiss the right ass, work at a rate that does not make you look too good (and workmates bad).

9

Yes, it’s not surprising that some (many?) employers in Taiwan will try to get lots of free overtime out of their employees, especially when it comes to ‘overpaid’ foreigners.

I’m currently considering accepting a full-time office-based position with a non-profit organization. The supervisor has told me that this position is regarded as a management type of position (I don’t remember the exact Chinese term she used for it), and that it doesn’t have a set amount of hours; you can call it a day only after all of your work for that day is finished. Sounds rather dodgey, perhaps even scary, knowing a bit about the (over)work culture in Taiwan.
Has anybody working in Taiwan had or know about this kind of position?

Also, does the Labor Standards Act and its overtime regulations even apply to office jobs? Article Three seems to state the the Act only applies to a limited range of industries, mostly blue-collar.

10

This is very true. “Salaries” fall into one of two “categories” here: One is high with lots of perks and bonuses, but no overtime pay. The other is low with few perks, but with overtime as calculated by LFC above. Personally, with the latter, I would think it meant you were considered more as just a “temporary” hire.

11

[quote=“Mr He”]I worked as a financial analyst once. If you define overtime as work done above and beyond say 40 hours per week, then I was working on overtime at least 1/3 of the time I was there.

However the pay package reflected this. I dod not feel unduly abused by them, especially when driving the company provided SUV to and from work.

So it depends.[/quote]

Exactly right. Depends on the position. If the 7/11 clerk, the newspaper editor, the kindie teacher, or the ESL teacher, who basically work for hourly wages, is required to put in extra hours without pay (or sit in the office without pay), that’s illegal and one should be able to file a complaint with the labor authorities and recover compensation (assuming it was regular, substantial, mandatory and one has adequate records).

But if you’re talking attorney, stock broker, management or other higher-level professional positions, I believe it’s perfectly legal to not pay extra compensation after 40 hours, in Taiwan or the US, because it’s assumed they may have to work long/irregular hours and that’s supposedly factored into the compensation.

12

Internationally, the ESL teacher, hourly paid or not, will be expected to put 1-2 hours prep and admin into each contact hour. It’s part of the job, as it is for all teachers. If you consistantly show up and wing it, you won’t be very good. That’s fine in Taiwan because no-one gives a shit, but trying that will have you out the door within a week in the UK or within an international organisation.

Comparing a teacher with a 7-11 clerk is not a very helpful analogy.

13

Sorry, to summarise, my point is, if you are going to take money for teaching, you have to teach. Chances are, you won’t be paid for prep time. I don’t get paid for prep time in the UK, where I work for a public, government college and have never in my entire career been paid for prep time and my boss would think I was insane if I asked for prep pay. Your hourly rate includes all extra work, not simply contact time. Industry standard.

14

In the same way you can’t charge for the commuting time to your job.
You want shorter commuting time, live closer, you want shorter prep time, then get better at it, you want pay raise, then get more productive

15

[quote=“Mother Theresa”][quote=“Mr He”]I worked as a financial analyst once. If you define overtime as work done above and beyond say 40 hours per week, then I was working on overtime at least 1/3 of the time I was there.

However the pay package reflected this. I dod not feel unduly abused by them, especially when driving the company provided SUV to and from work.

So it depends.[/quote]

Exactly right. Depends on the position. If the 7/11 clerk, the newspaper editor, the kindie teacher, or the ESL teacher, who basically work for hourly wages, is required to put in extra hours without pay (or sit in the office without pay), that’s illegal and one should be able to file a complaint with the labor authorities and recover compensation (assuming it was regular, substantial, mandatory and one has adequate records).

But if you’re talking attorney, stock broker, management or other higher-level professional positions, I believe it’s perfectly legal to not pay extra compensation after 40 hours, in Taiwan or the US, because it’s assumed they may have to work long/irregular hours and that’s supposedly factored into the compensation.[/quote]

Most overtime jobs are usually manual whereby you are doing something that can be measured, putting computer into a box, putting labels onto something, waiting on customers or waiting for customers, and where the pace is not controlled by you

However a full time (lets say office job) involves less manual activity and more brain activity (which therefore should be adding value beyond executing a specific procedure or task). In this case it’s pretty much up to you at what pace you want to work at. Ok there are exceptions to this, when there are heavy workloads or where you need to do specific things that take time well over the 40 hours

Incentives and flexibility are given to compensate. Take an extra day off work, flexible working time, and also the fact that you are learning something new. I mean the learning curve for packing a box is pretty short and flat, and its not exactly considered a skill

But getting overtime in such office job situations may lead to more inefficiency i.e I’ll just work slowly and start totting up the overtime. This can compound an already inefficient situation of stretching out the work to fill in the 40 hours a week

16

Oh and overtime is not only to compensate the employee, but as a means to decrease cost and force more efficiency. If I pay overtime, then my process is too slow or haphazard, else I am hiring too few people, or have not distributed the schedule correctly

Well that is what I read in some book

17

If you have over time work without pay, then call the Labor government. They will take care of it. My friend did exactly that, so the following day the labor government came to the company and demanded the owner of the company to pay over time! Don’t be afraid of getting fired :slight_smile:

18

This is very true. “Salaries” fall into one of two “categories” here: One is high with lots of perks and bonuses, but no overtime pay. The other is low with few perks, but with overtime as calculated by LFC above. Personally, with the latter, I would think it meant you were considered more as just a “temporary” hire.[/quote]

Then there is the majority of employees that work long hours and don’t get paid overtime. I’ve seen it first hand – 50+ hrs/wk for 19k/mo.

People with the highest salaries seem to do the least work. Actually, a Taiwanese businessman told me that a while back. It’s been that way everywhere I’ve worked since I’ve been here.

By the way, developing into a technically advanced society doesn’t correlate with poor working conditions. In fact, the shitty conditions here is one of the major things holding Taiwan back, as everyone who can do anything in demand goes abroad and makes 100k US / year instead of the 100k NT / year they would get here.

19

This is very true. “Salaries” fall into one of two “categories” here: One is high with lots of perks and bonuses, but no overtime pay. The other is low with few perks, but with overtime as calculated by LFC above. Personally, with the latter, I would think it meant you were considered more as just a “temporary” hire.[/quote]

Then there is the majority of employees that work long hours and don’t get paid overtime. I’ve seen it first hand – 50+ hrs/wk for 19k/mo.

People with the highest salaries seem to do the least work. Actually, a Taiwanese businessman told me that a while back. It’s been that way everywhere I’ve worked since I’ve been here.

By the way, developing into a technically advanced society doesn’t correlate with poor working conditions. In fact, the shitty conditions here is one of the major things holding Taiwan back, as everyone who can do anything in demand goes abroad and makes 100k US / year instead of the 100k NT / year they would get here.[/quote]

I think you are exaggerating. The absolute minimum you are allowed to pay someone for full time work is 22K per month with a minimum of 6 days off. You will get in a lot of shit for not abiding by this.

As for overtime, if you have a job that others covet, you need to put in the time, or they will find someone else. END OF STORY. Ask ANY manager in ANY country, and they will say the same thing, it is only if your work is consistently exemplary will you be excused early.

I have worked in a few Taiwanese office and for the vast majority of people, their idea of overtime is kind of bullshit. They roll into the office just before ten a.m. and they stay later, but lazily work till 7 or 8 or sometimes 9, breaking for biandang and chit chat and other activities. Few people are nose to the grindstone, many workers are going at a snails pace and likely not too keen to race home and take purchase on a wooden sofa next to a perpetually scowling perm adorned mama and a chain smoking baba. The office and its air conditioned, social, ‘I feel like I am a part of something’ environment has great appeal.

20

[quote=“Deuce Dropper”]

I have worked in a few Taiwanese office and for the vast majority of people, their idea of overtime is kind of bullshit. They roll into the office just before ten a.m. and they stay later, but lazily work till 7 or 8 or sometimes 9, breaking for biandang and chit chat and other activities. Few people are nose to the grindstone, many workers are going at a snails pace and likely not too keen to race home and take purchase on a wooden sofa next to a perpetually scowling perm adorned mama and a chain smoking baba. The office and its air conditioned, social, ‘I feel like I am a part of something’ environment has great appeal.[/quote]

I fully concur here. I have many friends that sit on Skype all day, but of course they put in their “obligatory” overtime and stay until 8pm. Just look at the bank for example. Opens at 9, closes at 3:30, but if you peek in at 8pm, there is still people there just sitting around chatting and doing no real appreciable work.

However, as far as overtime goes, when I worked in my field in Canada, everyone would be out of there right on time. No one did overtime unless we were backlogged. There is simply not a culture of working when you are not getting paid and I don’t think there should be. You want my services, you need to pay for them. But then again, most people in the west don’t really have a social connection with the people they work with outside of work so we all want to finish our job and just get outta there.