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Thousands of contractors strike for higher subsidies

Thousands of members of the Taiwan Region Engineering Contractors Association (TRECA, 營造公會) yesterday participated in a one-day strike in Taipei, demanding that the government increase subsidies to public construction contractors in the face of skyrocketing raw materials prices.

The association urged the government to lower its threshold for subsidies from 2.5 percent of material costs to 1.25 percent, which the Public Construction Commission (PCC) said would cost the Treasury a further NT$8.6 billion (US$282.29 million).

“TRECA predicts that an increase in subsidies would amount to less than NT$3 billion, far less than the PCC’s estimated NT$8.6 billion,” TRECA chairman Pan Chun-jung (潘俊榮) told reporters yesterday.

The PCC said the government had subsidized public construction contractors’ increasing material costs by nearly NT$17.4 billion as the general price index climbed nearly 12 percent from last January to January this year.

“TRECA’s request to increase subsidies will require the revision of the current contracts, although different government departments may have different opinions on this issue,” PCC Vice Chairperson Lee Wu-hsiung (李武雄) said yesterday.

“As a result, the PCC thinks it would be best to respect whatever the new government decides to do,” Lee said.

“Increasing subsidies is not the responsibility of the caretaker Cabinet,” Lee said.
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