History

1. These Guidelines have been established in order to encourage whistleblowing against violation of the Employment Services Act (hereinafter the “Act”) by foreign nationals, employers and private employment services organizations or individuals, to improve the efficiency of case investigation and processing, to ensure employment opportunities for the citizens and to maintain social stability.

2. A whistleblower referred to in these Guidelines means a national of the Republic of China or a person that has legally entered into and resides (stays) in the Republic of China, but excluding the following:
(1) Any foreign national in violation of the Act.
(2) Any employer that houses any foreign national illegally or any employer that hires any foreign national to perform work illegally.
(3) Any individual or private employment service organization that acts as a broker to seek employment for foreign nationals illegally, or any employee thereof.
(4) Any person that is subject to enforcement, investigation or repatriation in accordance with the law.
The targets of whistleblowing under these Guidelines are:
(1) Any illegal foreign worker: Meaning any person in violation of Article 43, Paragraph 4 of Article 52, Subparagraph 1 to the first part of Subparagraph 3 (hereinafter “Unknown Whereabouts”) or Subparagraph 7 of Article 73 of the Act that has been ordered by the central competent authority or the immigration authority to leave the territory of the Republic of China.
(2) Illegal Employer:
i. Any employer in violation of Article 44 or Subparagraph 1 or 2 of Article 57 of the Act that has been imposed a fine by a municipal or county (city) competent authority, or that has been handed over to the prosecutorial authority for investigation, or whose permit has been cancelled by the municipal or county (city) competent authority.
ii. Any employer in violation of Article 19 of the Regulations on the Permission and Administration of the Employment of Foreign Workers that has been imposed a fine by the municipal or county (city) competent authority or whose permit has been cancelled by the central competent authority.
iii. Any employer in violation of Subparagraph 3 of 4 or Article 57 of the Act that has been imposed a fine by the municipal or county (city) competent authority or whose permit has been cancelled by the central competent authority due to failure to correct a violation within a stipulated deadline.
iv. Any employer in violation of Subparagraph 10, Paragraph 1, Article 54 of the Act whose permit has been cancelled by the central competent authority.
v. Any employer who has committed the offense of criminal injury, sexual offense, offense against morality or offense against freedom against the foreign worker employed and who is subject to prosecution or deferred prosecution by a prosecutor, a petition for imposition of criminal penalty under summary judgment or non-prosecution in accordance with Article 253 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
(3) Private employment service organizations or individuals in violation of law: Meaning those in violation of Subparagraph 5, 7 or 9 of Article 40, Paragraph 2 of Article 34 or Article 45 of the Act.

3. The authorities that process whistleblowing under these Guidelines (i.e., the investigation authority) include the immigration authority, police authority, costal guard authority and labor competent authority.

4. The authority that processes whistleblowing shall establish case records, regardless of whether the whistleblower provided leads in writing, verbally, by telephone, fax or email, and shall exercise due care as to case confidentiality. The materials shall be sealed to indicate confidentiality.
The authority processing whistleblowing shall interrogate the whistleblower and shall record basic information such as the whistleblower’s name, ID number or alien residence permit number and passport number, household registration or alien resident address, contact telephone number and substantial facts and evidence in violation of law (such as target of whistleblowing, time, number of persons, location and evidence, etc.)
The authority may refuse to process any case with any of the following events:
(1) Anomalous whistleblowing or the whistleblower’s identify cannot be verified.
(2) The place of occurrence, date, period or time of the illegal conduct is unclear or is not supported by substantial information and the event of violation cannot be known.
(3) The same case is already subject to whistleblowing or repeated whistleblowing.
The processing authority (i.e., investigation authority) shall assign staff to perform an investigation within 7 days and shall prepare investigation minutes (records) about the relevant facts and evidence.
The investigation results shall be provided to the whistleblower by telephone or in writing.

5. The whistleblower shall collect the reward within 3 months from the day following the issuance of notice for reward collection by the investigation authority. Any delay shall be deemed a waiver.

6. Following investigation by the processing authority, the following documents shall be provide to the Workforce Development Agency, Ministry of Labor (hereinafter the “Agency”) for approval and issuance of the reward:
(1) Application for approval and issuance of reward notice.
(2) Record of processing whistleblowing or whistleblowing letter.
(3) Original copy of collection receipt specifying the whistleblower’s name and identification document.
(4) A copy of the whistleblower’s personal passbook. If the passbook is not provided, the Agency will send a non-transferrable and non-endorsable check drawn from the national treasury available for pickup from the bank by the whistleblower.
(5) Other required documents.
The other required documents under Subparagraph (5) of the previous paragraph are as follows:
(1) For any case involving discovery of an illegal employer or illegal private employment service organization or individual, the penalty notice for violation of the Act shall be provided.
(2) For any case about involving discovery of foreign national of Unknown Whereabouts but without discovery of illegal employer or illegal private employment service organization or individual, the minutes of investigation against the illegal foreign national shall be provided.
(3) For any criminal case involving discovery of an illegal employer or illegal private employment service organization or individual, the criminal case handover notice or report shall be provided.

7. The principles for determination and amounts of rewards issuable to the whistleblower are specified in the enclosed table.
When the whistleblower for the same case includes multiple persons, upon discovery and verification, the reward shall be allocated on an equal basis. When several whistleblowers report the same case one after another, upon discovery and verification, the reward shall be issued to the first whistleblower. If the order of the report cannot be determined, the reward shall be issued on an equal basis.
No whistleblower shall receive any other repeated whistleblowing reward issued by any other authority for the same case.

8. The Agency shall review and issue the whistleblower’s reward in accordance with the first paragraph of the previous article.

9. The funds required for the rewards under these Guidelines shall be budgeted by the Agency under the Employment Stability Fund.