In the business management sector, if you are not familiar with the various labor code laws, you may find yourself incurring more costs that avoiding them. These costs come in the form of lawsuits and penalties enforced by governing local labor unions if businesses are not careful.

This issue on forced leaves in Taiwan, a practice to which local companies put workers on forced unpaid leave for one or more days a week, is something that would befuddle us. Normally, you would think that if this were done in other countries, labor reps are bound to rush in and protect the employees from unfair labor practices. But apparently, this is non-existent in Taiwan, the latest victim of the recession biting phenomena that has put most companies in the spot of retaining workers or forcefully laying off excess workers.

“When an economic downturn begins to take hold, employers knee-jerk into making dramatic changes,” said Darryl Green, president of Asia Pacific for human resources firm Manpower Inc.

“But there are employers who will stop at nothing to try to retain their valuable workforce. These employers — often in the manufacturing sector where skills are hard to come by — consider innovative alternatives such as shorter working weeks and short-term shut-downs.”

Is this ethical? For contractual workers, there seems to be lesser options. But as far as regular employees, it is doubtful if these practices by companies can be done or gotten away with.

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