Labour Ministry reminder follows fines totalling millions for overtime payment violations
Employers in Taiwan are being urged to comply to the legal way of paying employees overtime after fines related to such violations ballooned to millions last year, according to reports.
Taiwan's Labour Ministry last week said the total fines imposed on businesses for breaching overtime regulations in 2022 reached NT$62 million, Taiwan News reported.
Its Labour Standards Act states that if overtime work does not exceed two hours, employees should be paid an additional one-third of their regular hourly rate, on top of their regular hourly wage.
If the employee works for over two hours but not more than four, they need to be paid at least an additional two-thirds of their regular hourly rate, in addition to their regular hourly wage.
Common labour violations
There are employers, however, that would require staff to take extra leave in return of working overtime instead of paying them properly, according to the ministry, noting that it was the most common labour violation.
Another common violation is underpayment of overtime work, the ministry added.
The ministry said overtime pay should be based on employees' total monthly salary divided by the number of hours they normally work, not just their "basic salary," Taiwan News reported.
The ministry stressed that this total monthly salary should include the "bonuses" that are part of an employee's wage.
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"We need to judge if each payment item (on a person's pay stub) is renumeration for work. If renumeration items are not related to work, they can be classified as a benefit, otherwise they will be treated as salary," Labour Ministry's Huang Wei-chen said as quoted by Taiwan News.
Taiwan's Labour Standards Act also includes working on rest days as overtime pay. According to the ministry, employers need to pay employees overtime pay if they made them work on rest days.
"When the overtime work does not exceed two hours, the worker shall be paid, in addition to the regular hourly wage, at least an additional one and one-third of the regular hourly rate," the law said on working during rest days.
"When the overtime work is over two hours, the worker shall be paid, in addition to the regular hourly wage, at least an additional one and two-thirds of the regular hourly rate."