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After nearly 10 years of campaign and lobbying, the National Teachers’ Association (NTA Taiwan) are celebrating a victory in their push to ensure the recognition of teachers and education personnel as an integral part of the labor movement.

Thanks to the efforts of the NTA, an Education International member organization, May Day will now be recognized as a National Holiday for all working people, including teachers and education personnel.

On May 9th, 2025, the Legislative Yuan – Parliament – approved amendments to the Act on the Implementation Measures of National Holidays and Memorial Days, acknowledging that all workers, including teachers, can enjoy May 1st as National Holiday.

End to structural discrimination against teachers

“This puts an end to structural discrimination against teachers in terms of the right to enjoy public holidays as workers,” explained NTA Taiwan President Hou Chun-Liang.

In addition to May Day, Teachers’ Day was also made a National Holiday to recognize the contributions of teachers and the teaching profession.

NTA Taiwan has worked intensively with influential legislators and held cross-partisan press conferences to prioritize May Day Holiday on the legislative agenda. This demand was also on the top of the list of demands during this year’s May Day general rally in which thousands of workers from different industries participated to show their support for teachers’ full labor rights.

In addition, an international press conference co-hosted by EIAP intensified the pressure on the Taiwanese administration to respect teachers’ full human rights as workers and citizens.

A new chapter for Taiwan’s labor movement

“The labor movement in Taiwan has entered a new chapter”, said NTA president Hou. "Teachers now can enjoy the days off with family on May 1st like other working colleagues.”

He went on to stress that, “as we celebrate the success with our union brothers and sisters in Taiwan and abroad, may we all keep in mind that the right to strike has not yet been enjoyed by teachers and public servants.”

The NTA Taiwan leader further reminded that the United Nations Recommendations on the Teaching Profession clearly state that teachers’ labor rights should be fully guaranteed, and that his union is firmly committed to continue the fight for teachers’ full labor rights.

Teachers and public services workers make this planet a better place to live and work

In Taiwan, May Day has been a public holiday for private sector workers, but not for those in the public sector, including teachers.

“It is a glaring and visible injustice,” Anand Singh, Director of the Education International ‘s Asia-Pacific (EIAP) office, had noted at the solidarity press conference co-hosted by NTA Taiwan and EIAP in 2021.

Since 2019, NTA Taiwan has taken the lead on the May Day National Holiday Campaign to raise awareness in the public and taking actions to make breakthroughs in four areas, namely administration, legislation, press and solidarity among workers. As society gradually reached consensus, the final battles lay in the Legislative Yuan, M. Hou said.

The Taiwanese education union constantly underlines that teachers, like many other workers in the public service, devote their lives to making the planet a better place to live and work and should never be distinguished from others by being denied the exercise of their human rights.