Asia-Pacific employment law bulletin 2025

Taiwan

Negotiating postponement of mandatory retirement age

On July 15, 2024, an amendment to Article 54 of the Labour Standards Act was passed, allowing employers and employees to negotiate postponing the mandatory retirement age. The Ministry of Labour also announced its ongoing commitment to encouraging senior employees to remain in the workforce through various channels.

Before the amendment, the Labour Standards Act stipulated that employers could not force employees under the age of 65 to retire. With the amendment, Taiwan has formally institutionalised labour-management negotiation mechanism, enabling the employers and employees to discuss extending the retirement age. This safeguards the rights of senior employees to negotiate with their employers and protect their employment benefits while simultaneously providing employers with a pathway to retain senior employees. Additionally, under Article 12 of the Middle-aged and Elderly Employment Promotion Act, employers are prohibited from engaging in discriminatory practices based on age against middle-aged and elderly job seekers or employees, including salary and benefits.

Under the amended article, when negotiating the extension of the retirement age, employers must not arbitrarily reduce wages or other employment conditions for employees over the age of 65. Violations may result in penalties between NTD300,000 (approximately USD 9,100) to NTD1,500,000 (approximately USD 45,500) and public disclosure of the employer’s name by competent authorities. That said, the amendment only provides for mutual negotiation, and any extension of the retirement age would still require the agreement of both the employer and the employee.

The Supreme Administrative Court upholds employers’ right to seek damages from unlawful strikes

In August 2024, the Supreme Administrative Court overturned a decision of the Ministry of Labour regarding a labour strike against EVA Air, a Taiwanese airline. EVA Air had sought civil damages against several union leaders involved in the strike, and the Ministry of Labour had previously ruled that EVA Air’s lawsuit constituted an unfair labour practice. Disagreeing with this decision, the Court ultimately ruled in favour of EVA Air, determining that the company’s civil damages lawsuit against the union leaders fell within the legitimate exercise of its right to litigation and did not constitute an unfair labour practice.

This judgment provided a detailed clarification of the relationship between employers' unfair labour practices and the strikes, emphasizing the following key points:

• While the Act for Settlement of Labour-Management Disputes grants employees the right to strike, such actions must adhere to the principles of good faith and cannot constitute an abuse of rights. Employers retain the right to seek damages for losses resulting from unlawful strikes. The Court emphasized that an employer’s litigation rights, protected under the Constitution, cannot be denied simply because of their status as an employer.
• In determining whether an employer’s lawsuit against employees constitutes an unfair labour practice, the reasonableness and legitimacy of the employer’s litigation must be weighed against the potential harm to union solidarity. If the employees’ strike actions clearly comply with legal norms and the employer abuses its economic advantage by filing lawsuits to suppress employees, such lawsuits would be deemed unfair labour practices. Conversely, if the employees’ actions objectively infringe upon the employer’s rights, litigation to clarify liability should be allowed. This ensures dispute resolution while affirming that such lawsuits are not inherently unfair labour practices.

Contributors: Yu Kai-Hua - LCS & Partners