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Updated Friday, October 5, 2007 0:00 am TWN, The China Post news staff

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Taichung firm fined for age discrimination

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- The Taichung City Government in central Taiwan fined a construction firm NT$300,000 (US$9,000) for age discrimination in hiring, representing the first monetary penalty against age discrimination since such rule was added to the Employment Service Law in May.

Officials from the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) under the central government said the construction firm was fined after taking out a sales representative recruitment ad in a local newspaper recently that limited applicants to those between 26 and 40 years old.

This came after a similar ad taken out by the same firm in a different newspaper in July limited applicants to females under the age of 40. For the first infraction, the city government had sent a desist notice to the firm, advising it against discriminatory hiring practices.

Legislator Huang Shu-ying yesterday criticized the CLA for not doing enough to prevent workplace discrimination. Huang produced a local newspaper with over a dozen recruitment ads containing requirements for gender, age and physical height.

According to CLA officials, all local media organizations have been notified to screen ads for discriminatory phrases that violate the Employment Service Law. New notices will be sent out again asking local media to remind advertising clients of the new anti-discrimination rules.

Effective May of this year, employers may no longer discriminate applicants based on birthplace, age, or sexual orientation. These are additions to the 12 attributes covered under the original “anti-discrimination” rules of the Employment Service Law, which banned workplace discrimination based on ethnicity, appearance, and political party membership among others.

Violators will be fined not less than NT$300,000 but no more than NT$1.5 million.

Despite these regulations, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) and the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau (MJIB) continue to screen job applicants based on strict criteria for facial appearance. Recent recruitment ads stipulate that only applicants with eyes, ears, nose, and mouth in the “correct places and normally shaped” will be considered.

According to the CLA, the rules in the Employment Service Law do not supersede existing hiring regulations of other laws. As such, the MOFA and the MJIBs’ discriminatory hiring practices were in accordance with the Examination Law concerning the recruiting of government employees.

CLA officials said they have asked government agencies to stop using discriminatory terms in recruitment ads, but added that government agencies will be exempt from fines even if they continue to employ discriminatory hiring practices.

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