Labor authorities see no merit in such a wage system: Official

TAIPEI: The Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) yesterday denied media speculation that it will adopt a multiple minimum wage system allowing wage differences by category.

CLA deputy chief Pan Shih-wei said his council "has absolutely no intention of doing such a thing."

Although some experts have recommended that such a system be implemented, the CLA has assessed the feasibility but "has never accepted it," Pan said.

According to a report published yesterday in the Liberty Times, there is a proposal to set different minimum wages for workers in the northern, central, southern and eastern regions.

Also, "sub-minimum wages" might be set for what were termed marginal workers such as teenagers and women, the report claimed.

Sun Pi-hsia, head of the CLA's Department of Labor Standards, noted that multiple minimum wages are usually implemented in countries with vast territories or wide urban-rural divides, situations that obviously do not apply to Taiwan.

The CLA has assessed the proposal many times, and on each occasion, it has concluded that such a system is "unfeasible," Sun said.

On the question of whether government representatives will withdraw from the minimum wage review committee, Sun said government representatives will not be completely absent from the committee, although their ratio on the committee will be reduced.

Also that day, legislators expressed strong opposition to the proposal of multiple minimum wages.

Yang Li-huan, a deputy whip of the ruling Kuomintang's legislative caucus, pointed out that differentiating minimum wages by region would simply result in the migration of workers from low- to high-wage regions.

Hou Tsai-feng, another caucus deputy whip, said any such proposal would be "ridiculous" and "inconceivable," because it would divide Taiwan residents into different classes.

Meanwhile, opposition Democratic Progressive Party legislators Chai Trong-rong, Huang Wei-cher and Huang Sue-ying said multiple minimum wages would be in violation of the principle of "equal pay for equal work."

It would be discriminatory to set lower minimum wages for women and disabled workers, Huang Sue-ying noted.

China Daily/CNA

(HK Edition 02/26/2010 page3)