A coalition of labor and civic groups yesterday rallied in front of the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) headquarters in Taipei to protest against what they called the DPP administration’s pro-business shift in labor policies and its failure to follow through on campaign promises.
This year’s Autumn Struggle march was directed against “fake transitional justice,” as protesters said the DPP administration promised but failed to carry out necessary reforms.
The DPP pledged support for minority groups, but the party, following its ascension to power, made a sharp turn in labor policies and other key issues and aligned itself with business groups instead of workers and underprivileged groups, protesters said.
Photo: CNA
The DPP promised to carry out comprehensive, progressive reforms in the name of transitional justice, but it did little to address the structural exploitation permitted by government policies, while the only “transition” the DPP administration implemented was to cement its political advantage against the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), protesters said.
“Transitional justice cannot bring happiness to the public if it is solely conducted against the KMT for political gain. That is why we ask [the DPP administration] to listen to the public and orient its policies toward public welfare and especially the welfare of disadvantaged people,” march director Lin Tzu-wen (林子文) said.
Protesters sent a plaque to the DPP describing the party as a “fraud ring,” as they said the party flip-flopped on labor rights and public issues and continued the former administration’s policies that contributed to the exploitation of workers.
“A hunger strike in protest of a planned cancelation of seven national holidays by the DPP administration will not be stopped until the plan is scrapped,” Hsinchu Confederation of Trade Unions director Chan Su-chen (詹素貞) said.
Protesters also took issue with policies on migrant workers, education, property seizure, gender equality, energy and food safety.
The Green Citizens’ Action Alliance said the government should communicate with the public and respond to doubts about a plan to lift a ban on food imports from four Japanese prefectures that was implemented after the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster in 2011, instead of just scrapping the proposed lifting of the ban.
Education rights advocates criticized the Ministry of Education’s proposed university transition measures, which would allow more flexibility in school administration and facilitate school closures and mergers.
“The measures would be a continuation of the higher education policies of the 1990s that gave rise to tuition hikes and deregulation and privatization of the education sector,” Taiwan Higher Education Union member Su Tzu-hsuan (蘇子軒) said.
The DPP said that projects to reform the social welfare system are under way, and the party would help facilitate communication between the government and the public to speed up reforms in labor policies, childcare, education, housing, long-term care services and pension systems.
“We fully understand the public’s expectation for reforms and it is certain that the government will shape its policies in consideration of the opinions voiced today,” DPP spokesman Yang Chia-liang (楊家俍) said.
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