No, I haven’t completely lost my mind but it seems that in Taiwan you are automatically entitled to 8 days paid leave when you get married.

So a bank clerk there thought he was onto a winner when he married the same woman four times and divorced her three times in just over a month, in a bizarre attempt to get more paid leave.

On this basis he reckoned that he had accrued 32 days of paid leave.

Unsurprisingly the bank was having none of it.

They quickly figured out what he was attempting to do and although approving the 8 days leave for the first marriage refused the last three leave requests.

The clerk, however believed that he was entitled to the extra days he’d claimed by law so he filed a grievance with the Taipei City Labour Bureau, accusing the bank of breaking the law by refusing his leave.

Incredibly, having reviewed the case the Labour Bureau ruled in his favour!

The bank was found to have violated article two of the labour leave rules, and ordered to pay a NT$20,000 fine, which is about £512 as well as extra holiday pay for the employee.

That was last October 2020. Unsurprisingly the bank appealed and claimed that the man’s ‘malicious abuse of marriage leave was not a legitimate cause of leave under the Labour Leave Rules  however that appeal was struck down by the labour bureau last month stating that even though the employee’s behaviour was unethical, it wasn’t illegal, and therefore he was actually entitled to the leave that he’d asked for.

So, there you have it. The precedent has been set. If you’re working a job in Taipei and fancy getting a whole heap more leave, you just need to find someone who will marry and divorce you a bunch of times.

Of course, when you return to the job, the atmosphere might be a bit frosty, but you’ll be nice and relaxed from all that holiday you’ve just had.

In the second hour Margaret Mills turned her attention to crime prevention as it was practiced in Essex during the mid 1700’s.

If you missed it, you can listen again to what Margaret had to say on this subject: –

I’ll see you again next week,
Scott