Professional Autonomy and Working-Time Protection: Reconstructing Taiwan’s Article 84-1 in Comparative Perspective

Article 84-1 of Taiwan’s Labor Standards Act permits designated workers to depart, through a written agreement approved by the local competent authority, from selected rules on working hours and days off. The official English text includes ‘professional workers with designated responsibility,’ yet workplace discourse often treats professional status, a fixed salary, or individual consent as a general exemption. This article asks when professional discretion can justify differentiated working-time regulation, what follows when statutory conditions are not met, how occupational-health evidence should inform review, and what Taiwan can learn from Japan’s discretionary labor systems after the 2024 reforms. It uses doctrinal analysis of legislation, constitutional interpretation, six purposively selected published judgments, and a functional comparison with Japan. It also synthesizes international legal, organizational, and occupational-health research. The article makes three contributions. It separates professional discretion from working-time risk; converts that distinction into an administrable two-axis test; and connects eligibility, approval, recordkeeping, health protection, and civil remedies in one framework. The evidence shows that control over method or schedule can improve work–life fit but may coexist with work intensification, permanent connectivity, and employer control exercised through workload, deadlines, and digital systems. Professional autonomy therefore cannot substitute for enforceable floors governing rest, remuneration, records, and health. The proposed regime requires substantive discretion, informed and revocable consent, representative participation, records of actual hours, risk-based approval with periodic review, and express consequences for noncompliance.

Professional Autonomy; Working-Time Regulation; Article 84-1; Overtime Pay; Discretionary Labor; Occupational Health; Taiwan; Japan

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