Revisions to three labor laws were put into effect on May first, which would give workers and labor unions greater power in future negotiations with employers. President Ma considers the change a milestone of Taiwan's labor history, calling it a "miraculous achievement" in a somewhat self-congratulatory mood.

Three new labor laws -the Labor Union Act, Collective Agreement Act and Settlement of Labor Disputes Act -are going into effect on May first, which would protect labor's rights to form unions, negotiate and resolve disputes.

After the amendment, the union law would allow related industries to form an industry union and even foreign labor workers can become staff in unions.

The Collective Agreement Act stipulates that employees and employers have the obligation to negotiate.

Failure to obey the law is subject to a maximum fine of 300,000 NTD.

To protect the achievement of negotiation, non-union members are not allowed to have the same benefits from collective agreements.

While the government believes the three laws are a milestone in Taiwan's labor history, unions are not as positive since there are only 3.3 percent of companies in Taiwan that actually have labor unions since labor workers often worry that they might be blacklisted if joining the union.

To comment on that,minister of labor council Jennifer Wang says that employees of different companies can form a labor union together and represent labor workers to negotiate with employers, a way to empower labors even more.

Wang stressed that a sound development of unions would gain more chips on the negotiation table for employees and she urges companies to encourage labor workers to form unions so they would have a fair platform for dialogue and a chance to create a win-win situation.