| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 勞工研究所 === 94 === Occupational hazards may not only deprive a labor worker’s life or health, it may also influence their family life. This problem in today’s industrial society is not only harm to our nations economy, it also decreases tax income and increases the population on social welfare, causing a burden on the society. The relationship between occupational injuries with work environment and type of occupation is prominent, while occupational medical science further emphasizes the harmful and health threatening mechanism in our work environment caused by corporate organization system management and factory automation models. Improper management and policy making by the employers is one of the factors behind occupational hazards, therefore, the government should aggravate the responsibility of the employer through the enactment of labor laws. The work of laborers is a great contribution towards the development of the society, therefore compensation up to the standard of everyday life functions should be provided in the event of occupational hazards. The social security system provided by the government should ensure the lifelong everyday life functions of their people, including social insurance, social welfare and social benefits. In Taiwan, it is mandatory for enterprises and employers to join the social insurance program and pay insurance premiums. This works as a social security insurance, and is an important source of social benefit resources. Occupational hazard insurance is a type of substantial security for the laborers who have endured loss by providing insurance settlement. The amount of the settlement is based upon the level of the occupational injury and how it affects the laborers’ income before and after the accident. Therefore, the settlement fund should be more than the minimum living standard covered by social welfare, which is the essence of the labor occupational hazard insurance provided by the employer. However, in recent years, Taiwan faces a resilience type of labor employment as many employers now hire temporary workers. If accidents should occur to these disadvantaged laborers, what they face in the future will be as painful as the accident itself. How can these workers receive legitimate rights with minimum pay and insufficient insurance!
As the person responsible of labor insurance operations in the company plays an important role between the insurer (Bureau of Labor Insurance) and the insured (employee), the maintenance of various employee rights should be fought for by this person. However, more than half of these staff members responsible for labor insurance operations either work part time or their position gets changed frequently, thus, they do not have sufficient knowledge of labor insurance operations, and cannot properly maintain the labor workers’ rights and occupational hazard insurance. According to statistics, in Taiwan, about 25% of those who hold a mentally or physically impaired handbook are due to genetic disorders, while the remaining 75% are caused by occupational hazards, traffic accidents, accidents, illness or other acquired mishaps causing physical or mental impairment. In order to provide emergency rescues to these victims, a non-profit organization and volunteer work center should take the role of first line information research work, or act as liaison between the victims and the report system for disaster relief work. To protect the laborers, the government drafted labor laws one after another, and all sorts of social benefits and welfare programs (including occupational hazard protection law) exist. However, the application procedure is too complicated for most workers who are in a disadvantaged position. The government’s general and popular way of service often neglects those really in need, and will only push these physically or mentally impaired victims of occupational hazard with low education to seek help from the market. This assistance is normally found through so called labor insurance agents or management consulting firms, popularly known as “labor insurance scalpers”, allowing them to exploit these laborers by asking for outrageous commissions.
This study recommends a non-profit social benefit charity organization with national accredited social working professionals, to certify the labor insurance’s occupational hazard insurance settlement fund. With volunteers and other young people working on mandatory military work to provide their kind hearted assistance to laborers who have endured occupational injuries in place of the government and enterprises, may be the solution to the problem in our society today. They should assist these laborers in their application for social insurance matters, and help them receive their compensation in the shortest time, so that they can continue with their lives and other relieve measures. In turn, they could assist the government in work efficiency and attain just administrative achievements. Those laborers who become physically or mentally impaired due to occupational hazard and these professional social workers should combine occupational hazard social insurance and physically or mentally impaired protection law in providing an integrated social security system. The method of this study is mainly to conduct in-depth interviews with social security professionals, scholars and relevant staff members in providing more concrete information on occupational hazard social insurance and security system.
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