英文摘要 |
The amendment of labor standard law with regard to reduction of working hours and elimination of 7 national holidays has been generating fierce labor dispute. However, the discourse and reasoning of both labor and capital is largely limited to economic rationale, which is superficial and unable to clarify the nature of the struggle. A serious review on working hours' legislation over the past 90 years points to the fact that working hours rule is loosening in terms of overtime restriction and flexi-time application. Overtime used to be an exception of normal working hours. But today overtime is widely adopted and applied in various industries. This very fact explained why Taiwan remained one of the highest working hours' societies. Overwork due to long working hours becomes a new threat and a nightmare in the workplace in this island. This paper aims to address the nature and its theoretical underpinning of the dispute from the perspective of the critique of political economy. The first theoretical argument is the concept of so call "normal" working hours refers to a wage level that can support the living of workers and their family beyond subsistence. That means workers do not have to rely on overtime to earn a living. The second argument is overtime has two theoretical implications. One implication is that overtime indicates the super exploitation of capital over labor. The other is overtime will inappropriately shorten the length of working years. Therefore, overtime rate has to be doubly compensated, which is labor's right, not a favor from capital. From the theoretical perspective, it is clear that the flexibility favored by the government will bring forth even more disasters to workers who have been overworked and underpaid for at least two decades. |