Members of several social activist groups, including the Taiwan Confederation of Trade Unions (TCTU), filed an appeal with the Cabinet-level Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) yesterday for a national meeting to review the existing minimum wage structure, a meeting that the CLA had earlier promised.

TCTU Chairman Shih Chao-hsien called for the CLA to convene the meeting as soon as possible to decide whether or not the minimum wage is at a reasonable level, as prices of commodities and daily necessities have soared over the past year.

Shih said that although inflation has surged by an average of 6.46 percent over the past four years and the country's economy has advanced between 4 percent-6 percent annually, blue-collar workers have not enjoyed any positive results of this growths.

He pointed out that Taiwan's minimum wage has not been adjusted over the last 10 years except for once in 2007.

"Even though the minimum wage was adjusted last year, the payment adjustment did not efficiently reflect the real growth in inflation," Shih said.

He further noted that the country's civil servants enjoyed salary hikes in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2005.

"I hope President-elect Ma Ying-jeou and his new administration will pay closer attention to the issue of salaries for the working class," Shih added.

Meanwhile, Sun You-lien, secretary-general of the Taiwan Labor Front, said that according to official statistics released by the CLA, about 310,000 blue-collar workers have yet to be protected under the Labor Standards Act.

However, he disputed this figure, saying that according to his group's estimation, at least around 600,000 salaried workers are not entitled to the benefits of the Labor Standards Act.

Sun called for the CLA to make a commitment that measures will be taken to gradually allow all these disadvantaged workers to enjoy the benefits stipulated in the law.

The minimum wage was raised to NT$17,280 per month and the minimum hourly wage was hiked to NT$95 July 1, 2007. About 1.41 million "marginal" members of the country's workforce -- including foreign laborers, part-time workers,senior citizens who have returned to the employment market after retirement and female workers -- reportedly benefited from the wage hike.

In response to the groups' calls, CLA officials said Monday that a review of the issue of including more employees under the protection of the Labor Standards Act is expected to be completed by the end of 2009 and that a national meeting on the minimum wage issue will be held as scheduled -- probably after May 20, when the new Kuomintang administration will take office.