Graduate Institute of Labor Research, National Chengchi University

本文主要在回顧基本工資之立法、基本工資水準的國際比較、及檢視基本工資與其他社經指標歷年的變遷趨勢，以瞭解基本工資在邊際勞工保障程度上的變遷。研究發現：我國基本工資的法律位階不斷低化，其保障內涵也漸由勞工「家戶」生活維持轉變成「個人」生活保障。我國二〇〇一年基本工資折算約為520歐元，與歐盟主要國家相較，僅較葡萄牙的390歐元為高；其佔製造業平均薪資的比率為41.1%，相對也較歐盟主要國家為低。以一九七八至二〇〇三年官方二手統計資料，比較基本工資與製造業平均月薪、物價指數、最低生活費用、平均國民所得、及五等份家戶平均個人消費支出等指標後發現，我國基本工資對於邊際勞工的保障程度有逐漸降低的趨勢，特別是在一九九七年以後因基本工資未做調整而更形惡化。例如二〇〇三年基本工資佔製造業平均薪資已降至40.02%，在歷年中約僅較一九七九至一九八二年期為高；一九九七年起因基本工資不再調整，導致實質基本工資的購買力已不增反減；基本工資對邊際勞工保障程度之成長速率，自一九八八年起已落後於臺北市與台灣省之最低生活費用對低收入家戶的保障程度；一九八七年起基本工資的成長速率也已低於平均國民所得；歷年基本工資水準尚能保障勞工「個人」基本生活，然而卻不足以保障勞工的「家庭」基本生活支出。

近二十年來，縮減工時成為許多國家與工會追求更高工作生活品質，或減少失業率之重要政策。我國從二〇〇一年起實施兩週八十四小時的法定正常工時制度。新工時制對國家、產業及企業的衝擊甚大。由於臺灣實施法定縮減工時的政策，不到四年的時間，資料較不足以作為時間數列資料分析的基礎（以月份或季節作為分析單位）。因此本研究選擇以日本製造業作為分析對象（一九八二年一月至二〇〇四年三月），採時間數列資料分析，探討縮減工時對產出、雇用及勞動生產力之正、負面影響。

工時、縮減工時、產出、雇用、勞動生產力、日本研究結果發現如下：在縮減工時對產出的影響方面，增加資本存量、設備利用率以及增加現有員工的工作時間對產出有正面效果，雇用人數的增加卻可能會減少產出。此外，縮減工時的前三個階段（一九八八年四月至一九九七年三月）對產出無顯著影響，第四階段（一九九七年四月至二〇〇四年三月）則可能會減少產出。在縮減工時對雇用人數的影響方面，增加每週正常工時或提高加班成本將會導致雇用人數增加，當產出提高時則反而會減少雇用人數。此外，前三個階段的縮減法定工時均對雇用有正面效果。在縮減工時對勞動生產力的影響方面，由分析結果可知，產能及設備利用率的增加有助於提升勞動生產力，而總工時的增加則可能會降低勞動生產力。此外，第一、第三及第四階段縮減工時均有助於勞動生產力的提高。本研究能彌補國內、外有關縮減工時理論及實證分析之不足，釐清勞工、企業與政府三方對縮減工時之疑慮，並有助於政府未來工時政策的訂定。

In the recent two decades, reduction of working hours (RWH) has been an important policy to improve quality of work life and to reduce unemployment by governments and labor unions in industrialized countries. Since 2001, Taiwan has amended working time reduction law to 84 hours in two weeks. This amendment has great impacts on industries and businesses. Due to lack of longitudinal data to run time series analysis with Taiwanese data, this study used Japanese manufacturing data (from January 1982 to March 2004) to investigate the positive and negative effects of RWH on output, employment and labor productivity.

The research findings are as follows. First, regarding the relationship between RWH and output, the increase of capital stock, capacity utilization and increase of working time of current employees had positive effects on output. Whereas the increase of employed persons was negatively related to output. RWH had no effect on output in the period of April 1988 to March 1997, while RWH had negative impact on output during the period of April 1997 to March 2004. Second, as to the effect of RWH on employment, increase of normal weekly working hours and increase of overtime payment had positive relationships with employment. Output increase had negative relationship with employment. RWH had positive effect on employment in the period of April 1988 to March 1997. Last, to examine the effect of RWH on labor productivity, the results showed that the increase of production capacity and capacity utilization would lead to labor productivity increase, while the increase of working time of current employees might decrease labor productivity. Labor productivity increased in the period of April 1988 to March 1991 and in the period of April 1994 to March 2004. This study extends the current research on RWH and implications of this study to governmental policy making are noted.

This paper compares the differences in the experiences of institutionalizing representative workers’ participation between Germany and Taiwan and attempts to shed light on the role of social dialogue in the developments of industrial democracy. Our model posits that the successful developments of representative workers’ participation depend upon the productive social dialogue in which industrial relations actors interact to negotiate new rules and regulations governing labor relations in a constructive and reciprocal way. For such dialogue to take place, favorable institutional environments should exist to facilitate mutual trust and agreements among industrial relations parties. German postwar experiences in representative workers’ participation seem to support our arguments, while the case of Taiwan tends to imply that a lack of such dialogue and complementary institutional factors lead to unsuccessful democratic developments in industrial relations.

Taiwan's female labor force participation rate has revealed cyclical movement in the short run since the 1960s. The cyclical variation in labor market seems related to recent industry structural shifts in Taiwan. We adopt Lilien's (1982) method to calculate the natural rate of unemployment, taking into account the shifts of demand for labor among different sectors. We then use Pancavel's (1986) method to run the regression of female labor force participation on the natural rate of unemployment. We find that the decision of female laborers is significantly sensitive to sectoral shifts, especially for the group of age 15-44.