In a bid to further protect labor rights, the Council of Labor Affairs has recently broadened its definition of occupational hazard. Under the new regulation, employees who fell sick, whether at home or at work, would be en

In January last year, an engineer surnamed Hsu at Nanya Technology Corp., was found dead at home. His sudden death was recently ruled as being connected with working overtime by Council of Labor Affairs's occupational hazard assessment committee.

The case was actually overruled last year when the family applied for benefit payments from the Labor Insurance Bureau.

Since last December, the Council of Labor Affairs has substantially broadened government standards for acknowledging deaths resulting from overwork. The revised standards recognize that several illnesses such as cerebrovascular and cardiovascular diseases may be brought on by excessive work patterns.

But usually, the standards will be applicable when the cases are being reviewed at the committee.

Most of the time, when the Labor Insurance bureau reviews the case at the first stage, if the disease attack does not happen at the work place, the application is often denied.

Labor groups urge the council to quickly amend the related laws at the same time and to enhance the efforts in checking working hours of labors to remind the coporates to pay attention to health risks from overwork.

Afterall, money can't buy life.