Paid time off - is it required by law?

[Quarters]

I work fulltime, legaly and will be finishing my one year contract next March. Is my school obligated by law to provide paid time off when I re-sign for another year or two?

It is my understanding that a business in Taiwan needs to provide a certain amount of paid time off for each year worked. Does this apply to teaching as well?

[Toe_Save]

7 vacation days and 7 sick days plus National holidays and typhoon/earthquake days are what you are legally entitled to with a fulltime contract. Some of your more cretinous Laobans will insist that you make up the national holidays/typhoon days by working some weekends. Tell them to take a flying fuck off a far finger.

[Rascal]

Here is the relevant regulation, it doesn’t make a difference between teaching and other jobs:

[quote=“Labor Standards Act, Article 38”]Where a worker continues to work for one and the same employer or business entity for a certain period of time he (or she) shall be granted special leave on an annual basis on the following basis:

1. Seven days for the services of more than one year but less than three years.
2. Ten days for the service of more than three years but less than five years.
3. Fourteen days for the service of more than five years but less than ten years.
4. One additional day for each year of service over ten years up to a maximum of thirty days.[/quote]

Other leave is mentioned here: Regulations of Leave.doc

[Belgian_Pie]

@Toe Save

7 vacation days and 7 sick days plus National holidays and typhoon/earthquake days are what you are legally entitled to with a fulltime contract. Some of your more cretinous Laobans will insist that you make up the national holidays/typhoon days by working some weekends. Tell them to take a flying fuck off a far finger.

What are earthquake days? Something new?

[Toe_Save]

@Belgian Pie

[quote=“Toe Save”]7 vacation days and 7 sick days plus National holidays and typhoon/earthquake days are what you are legally entitled to with a fulltime contract. Some of your more cretinous Laobans will insist that you make up the national holidays/typhoon days by working some weekends. Tell them to take a flying fuck off a far finger.

What are earthquake days? Something new?[/quote]

A guy can hope, can’t he?

[jlick]

Another important point is that some employers might claim that that your vacation accrual resets if you start a new contract, so that if you are on a series of one year contracts that you will not be eligible for vacation time. However the Labor Standards Act, Article 10 says otherwise:

If a new contract is executed, or an existing contract is renewed, within three months after the expiration of a fixed-term contract or the termination of a non-fixed-term contract for cause, the service period which accrued before the execution or renewal of the contract shall be combined with the service period of the new or renewed contract in any computation of service period.

Nor can they escape the obligations by the dodge of shutting down a company and reopening under a new name because Article 20 says:

When a business entity is restructured or changes ownership … [t]he new employer shall recognize the prior period of service of those workers to be retained.

[rocky_raccoon]

Okay that’s good to know. I just signed a contract for my first year in a new technology company. They give 5 days for the first year and now I can see how the 2nd year will work.
Thanks for the useful information!

[robinhood5000]

so, they are required to provide paid time off? i work for a huge school chain with a germanic name, and they are pretty adament that they are required to provide 0 paid holidays/ typhoon days/ sick days etc… All my vacation time etc is unpaid.

[urodacus]

be careful, sometimes they will claim that “first year” refers to the first full calendar year you are there, so if you start on Jan 2, you’re not eligible to start counting a year until next time you pass Jan 1 while still under contract. Crapola, but they hold the cards normally.

[jlick]

@robinhood5000

so, they are required to provide paid time off? i work for a huge school chain with a germanic name, and they are pretty adament that they are required to provide 0 paid holidays/ typhoon days/ sick days etc… All my vacation time etc is unpaid.

Are you paid a monthly salary or an hourly rate? If it is the latter then you may or may not have paid holidays. If it is the former then you definitely do.

[pubba]

Good to know re: the paid holidays after one year of work. I doubt I will be able to get through my first year, let another one in this awful town… But who knows?

I have one of those ‘cretinous laobans’ that make me work on the following Saturday after having a so called ‘holiday’. So in fact, it’s not a holiday at all, right? I mentioned this and they just looked bewildered (again).

When I went to my interview for this job they said I get paid public holidays (CNY, Dragon Boat day) and 7 days of unpaid holidays per year. I was really looking forward to a week away mid contract but when I asked about it last week, she said ‘Sorry. You get two days a week for holidays. Surely that’s enough. If you sign up for another year, you can have 7 days unpaid holiday’.

Gee… thanks

So, I don’t think I will be signing up for another contract if given the option…

It’s this crappy decision, plus the ‘learning challenged’ students that they lump in with my classes, and the total lack of support that will make me leave ASAP.

Hopefully I can find a better job next time round…