I. Overtime pay
The supervisor stated that there would be no overtime pay.
The company does not provide overtime pay during periods of overtime work.
Based on the clock-in records,
I often worked outside the regular working hours agreed upon with the employer,
but was not given any additional overtime pay.
In addition, the employer or supervisors sometimes required employees
to work outside regular working hours (distributing flyers, recruiting students, etc.).
There was no compensatory leave or overtime pay provided afterward.
II. Employment contract and pay slips
The company and I signed an employment contract.
I wanted to obtain and keep a copy of the employment contract
to avoid any related disputes that might arise in the future.
However, my supervisor told me
that the employment contract could not be given to me.
I instinctively thought that the employment contract should be made in duplicate,
so I asked: Why?
The supervisor replied: The boss said employees are not allowed to take it home.
In addition,
employees are also not allowed to keep their own pay slips.
My supervisor told me:
The contents of the pay slips
could be asked about and copied down,
but they could not be taken home.
The supervisor said this was also what the boss had instructed.
Note: After 2017,
the new Labor Standards Act provisions came into effect.
I do not know whether the rules have changed now.
III. Salary payments
The company had a special rule when paying salaries.
The salary was paid separately as the minimum wage and the difference between the salary and the minimum wage.
For example:
My salary was NT$28,000.
The company deposited NT$20,008 (the minimum wage)
into my salary account.
The remaining NT$7,992 (NT$28,000 - NT$20,008)
was reduced by labor and health insurance premiums and other items
(I also forgot exactly what was deducted, because I was never given a pay slip),
and the remaining balance was then paid to employees in cash.
IV. Salary withheld from new employees
The company had another rule regarding the salaries of new employees.
New employees had a three-month probationary period.
During these three months,
NT$5,000 would first be withheld from their salary
and paid all at once on the payday of the fourth month.
For example:
If my salary was NT$28,000,
the salary I received in the first month was NT$23,000 (NT$28,000 - NT$5,000)
(and it was withdrawn partly through salary transfer and partly in cash).
The salary I received in the fourth month was
NT$28,000 + (NT$5,000 × 3) = NT$43,000.
However, new employees who resigned within the three-month period
could not receive the NT$5,000 in withheld salary.
For example:
A new employee who resigned in the second month
could not receive the NT$10,000 in withheld salary.
It seems that someone really did resign during this period, was actually charged the withheld amount, and could not get the money back.
V. Break time
Basically, there was 30 minutes of break time per day.
However, you had to find the time for this 30-minute break yourself,
and there was generally no free time throughout the day.
Even meals had to be eaten while taking care of other tasks.
The 30-minute break effectively existed only on paper.
VI. End of the workday
Usually, you could clock out and leave at 10:00 p.m.
However, the other colleagues were usually still there
because they had not finished their work.
Therefore, leaving on time was impossible.
There was also a rotating duty shift,
which involved locking up after the other colleagues had left the office.
This usually did not finish until around 10:30–11:00 p.m.
Sometimes, if the work could not be finished, employees were also required to come to the company early to deal with it.
However, none of these additional working hours were paid as overtime.
It was all supposedly because we were not competitive enough and deserved the blame for not finishing the work, hehe.