The management of China Airlines (CAL, 中華航空) yesterday reached an agreement with its employees’ union on the union’s eight listed demands in negotiations, averting a potential de facto strike by workers on Friday, CAL chief executive officer Hsieh Shih-chien (謝世謙) said.
Hsieh headed into yesterday’s session to negotiate with representatives of the China Airlines Employees Union, which covers ground staff, pilots, maintenance workers and other China Airlines employees, following objections and heated exchanges between the two sides in the previous day’s talks.
He confirmed having deliberated on the eight demands put forward by the union in the two-day session, and that both sides have signed a formal agreement, but he declined to give any details of the settlement.
Photo: CNA
Some revisions were made to the eight demands, but they were acceptable to the union, according to representatives at the session, which took place at a CAL office building at the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport.
The union representatives agreed to settle and announced that they would cancel the planned labor protest on Friday, which called for members not to show up for work by calling in sick for the day.
The CAL labor dispute centered on working conditions and pay issues, including long-frozen annual seniority-based raises and back pay accrued during the freeze.
“We received in this agreement what CAL had owed us for the past 20 years,” union spokeswoman Wang Chao-jung (王昭蓉) said.
She said that some employees might see “minor differences” between their original demands and those now contained in the agreement, “but this is the result of negotiation. If we insist on getting everything, then there might not be a settlement, and both sides would suffer, which would end up sacrificing the rights of passengers.”
“Right at the start, our union believed the battle should take place during negotiation talks, and should not be fought in the street,” she said, distancing her union from the two-day strike by CAL flight attendants last weekend, which saw sit-in demonstrations in front of the CAL headquarters in Taipei and led to nearly 200 flight cancellations and other kinds of disruptions and headaches for thousands of stranded passengers.
“With solidarity by union members, we can get what we want, and there was no need to hold anyone hostage to reach this agreement,” Wang said.
In their demands, the union had asked that the commuting time of all CAL employees be included in the calculation of their work hours, that the travel allowance for all pilots and cabin crew be raised to US$5 per hour, that the subsidy for ground staff members be increased and that the number of their days off — weekends, holidays and national holidays — be increased from 118 to 123 days.
Other requests included increasing benefits and other remuneration for hourly paid workers, increasing the subsidy for professional certificates and providing accommodation and transportation for employees assigned to work in a foreign country, while maintaining their subsidies.
Previous negotiations between the union and CAL’s new chairman, Ho Nuan-hsuan (何煖軒), had broken down after three rounds of talks on Monday, which led the union to decide that one-third of its members would take leave on Friday.
Additional reporting by CNA
One of two tropical depressions that formed off Taiwan yesterday morning could turn into a moderate typhoon by the weekend, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Tropical Depression No. 21 formed at 8am about 1,850km off the southeast coast, CWA forecaster Lee Meng-hsuan (李孟軒) said. The weather system is expected to move northwest as it builds momentum, possibly intensifying this weekend into a typhoon, which would be called Mitag, Lee said. The radius of the storm is expected to reach almost 200km, she said. It is forecast to approach the southeast of Taiwan on Monday next week and pass through the Bashi Channel
WARNING: People in coastal areas need to beware of heavy swells and strong winds, and those in mountainous areas should brace for heavy rain, the CWA said The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday issued sea and land warnings for Typhoon Ragasa, forecasting that it would continue to intensify and affect the nation the most today and tomorrow. People in Hualien and Taitung counties, and mountainous areas in Yilan and Pingtung counties, should brace for damage caused by extremely heavy rain brought by the typhoon’s outer rim, as it was upgraded to a super typhoon yesterday morning, the CWA said. As of 5:30pm yesterday, the storm’s center was about 630km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving northwest at 21kph, and its maximum wind speed had reached
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said that it expected to issue a sea warning for Typhoon Ragasa this morning and a land warning at night as it approached Taiwan. Ragasa intensified from a tropical storm into a typhoon at 8am yesterday, the CWA said, adding that at 2pm, it was about 1,110km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip. The typhoon was moving northwest at 13kph, with sustained winds of up to 119kph and gusts reaching 155kph, the CWA Web site showed. Forecaster Liu Pei-teng (劉沛滕) said that Ragasa was projected to strengthen as it neared the Bashi Channel, with its 200km
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: Hualien and Taitung counties declared today a typhoon day, while schools and offices in parts of Kaohsiung and Pingtung counties are also to close Typhoon Ragasa was forecast to hit its peak strength and come closest to Taiwan from yesterday afternoon through today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Taiwan proper could be out of the typhoon’s radius by midday and the sea warning might be lifted tonight, it added. CWA senior weather specialist Wu Wan-hua (伍婉華) said that Ragasa’s radius had reached the Hengchun Peninsula by 11am yesterday and was expected to hit Taitung County and Kaohsiung by yesterday evening. Ragasa was forecast to move to Taiwan’s southern offshore areas last night and to its southwestern offshore areas early today, she added. As of 8pm last night,
RSS