EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空) said negotiations with the EVA Air Union over ground staff benefits broke down again yesterday, days after a strike launched by its flight attendants ended last week.
The airline held its first meeting with the corporate union on June 12.
At the second meeting yesterday, the two sides agreed to hold another round of negotiations on Aug. 8, EVA said.
“We have no intention of launching a strike, even though the first two rounds of negotiations did not go smoothly, because we think we can settle the disputes by talking rather than taking it to the streets,” union secretary Huang Shih-ting (黃士廷) told the Taipei Times by telephone.
Set up in 2016, the EVA Air Union has nearly 1,000 members, including ground staff, flight attendants and pilots.
At the first meeting, the union put forward proposals to improve working conditions for ground staff, including raising their night duty allowance from NT$100 per hour to NT$150 and paying ground staff for taking the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT home instead of shuttle buses, Huang said.
The union yesterday also demanded an extra allowance of NT$5,000 per day for each ground crew member, as ground staff had a heavier workload while flight attendants were on strike.
EVA rejected the demand, Huang said.
The airline said it appreciated all employees who worked during the flight attendants’ strike, but was critical of some leaders of the Taoyuan Flight Attendants’ Union (TFAU), which launched the strike last month, serving as representatives of the EVA Air Union, such as TFAU representative Liao Yi-chin (廖以勤) and deputy secretary Chou Sheng-kai (周聖凱).
They should be held responsible for the heavier workload ground staff had to deal with, as they launched the strike, EVA said.
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