Bank clerk married same spouse 4 times, divorced 3 times in little more than a month to claim extra marriage leave

A bank clerk in Taipei City married the same spouse four times and divorced three times in a 37-day period last year, in order to claim 32 days marriage leave, United Daily News and Liberty Times reported today, April 11.

According to a lawyer named Lin who posted about the unusual case on his Facebook page, the bank was issued a fine for only paying for the mandatory 8 days leave for the first marriage.

According to Lin, the clerk registered a marriage on April 6, 2020, and took 8 days of leave from April 7 to 16. The clerk then immediately divorced the spouse, then registered a new marriage to the same spouse on April 17. After taking another 8 days of marriage leave, the clerk then divorced again on April 28 and married again on April 29. A third divorce ensued on May 11, followed by a fourth marriage to the same spouse on May 12.

The bank considered the clerk’s actions as a malicious abuse of marriage leave, and paid leave for only the first marriage.

The clerk then filed a complaint with the Taipei City Labor Bureau, who subsequently fined the bank NT$20,000 for not paying leave for all four marriages. The Labor Bureau’s decision was issued in October 2020.

The bank filed an appeal with the Appeal’s Committee, claiming that the employee’s abuse of marriage leave was not in compliance with the Labor Standards Act.

The appeals committee found that the Labor Bureau hadn’t clarified whether the bank employee had abused his rights and violated the principle of good faith, therefore it should revoke the original sanction and make a new sanction within 60 days.

The Commissioner of the Labor Standards Section of the Labor Bureau Huang Jingang (黃金剛) said that although the employee’s practice seems unreasonable, according to the Labor Standards Law, there is no requirement that he must marry a different person to receive leave. As long as there is a fact of marriage, he must be given marriage leave.

The administrative agency can only investigate whether there is a marriage fact with the household registration agency, and ask whether the parties are willing to get married. If the above are in line with the regulations, the bank must give a holiday. If the company is not satisfied, it can claim abuse of rights and give written warnings, but it still has to give leave first, then mediate through the “Labor Incident Law,” or conduct civil litigation.

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