萬國法律事務所

In order to address disputes between the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) and workers of closed factories, the Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee (Committee) of the Legislative Yuan previously froze nearly one-fifth of the CLA’s budget in an attempt to encourage CLA to actively end the stalemate.

Recently, the Committee examined the budget and resolved that the CLA should move to transfer the pending civil cases against workers of closed factories to the administrative courts and that Act 24 of the Employment Services Act should be amended as soon as possible to provide legal grounds for preventing workers from paying back loans received from the government sixteen years ago.

The Committee unfroze the budget on the condition that CLA forward the Committee’s resolution to the civil courts which have not ruled yet regarding the motion to transfer the pending cases to the administrative courts before the Legislative Yuan completes the amendment of Article 24 of the Employment Services Act.

In addition to the amendment of Employment Services Act, once the pending civil cases are transferred to the administrative courts and the loan agreement between both parties is recognized by the transferee courts as administrative contracts rather than civil contracts, the workers of closed factories may not need to repay the loans due to the lapsed statute of limitations of five years per the Administrative Procedure Act.