About 200 China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) employees yesterday said that they opposed the strike launched by the Taoyuan Union of Pilots, at a protest outside the Ministry of Transportation and Communications in Taipei.
Protesters also questioned the role of union chairwoman Lee Hsin-yen (李信燕), who is an EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空) pilot, saying that she should withdraw from negotiations with airline management, as it involves confidential information.
“I was elected through legal procedures to be the chairwoman of the union, which represents CAL and EVA pilots,” Lee said.
Photo: CNA
“I am simply fulfilling my responsibility as the chairwoman, which is to represent its members,” she said.
The employees who protested did so voluntarily and did not receive any instructions from company management, CAL manager Lee Ching-ting (李晶婷) said.
“The union, on the other hand, searched the Internet to identify pilots who defied its order to go on strike. It should stop cyberbullying and face the public honestly instead,” she said.
Ground staff have been working extra hours to help passengers change their tickets, and many were still working yesterday, so they could not attend the protest, Lee Ching-ting said.
Some of the protestors told the Taipei Times that the pilots should be reasonable in their demands.
Pilots do not seem to realize that their demands would impose a huge financial burden on the airline, they said, adding that the strike would also cause the company to lose passengers.
After a previous strike launched by flight attendants in 2016, the company took about six months to resume normal operations, they said.
Pilots should stop the strike and start working immediately, they added.
Protesters handed a petition to Civil Aeronautics Administration Flight Standards Division Director Clark Lin (林俊良), who accepted the letter for the ministry.
China Airlines Employees’ Union president Liu Hui-tsung (劉惠宗) also attended the rally, although he was rooting for the striking pilots.
Workers should support each other, Liu said, adding that going on strike was the last resort for workers to defend themselves.
Protesters accused Liu of being shameless and using the union’s membership fees for his campaign for the Taoyuan mayoral election last year.
PROVOCATIVE: Chinese Deputy Ambassador to the UN Sun Lei accused Japan of sending military vessels to deliberately provoke tensions in the Taiwan Strait China denounced remarks by Japan and the EU about the South China Sea at a UN Security Council meeting on Monday, and accused Tokyo of provocative behavior in the Taiwan Strait and planning military expansion. Ayano Kunimitsu, a Japanese vice foreign minister, told the Council meeting on maritime security that Tokyo was seriously concerned about the situation in the East China and South China seas, and reiterated Japan’s opposition to any attempt to change the “status quo” by force, and obstruction of freedom of navigation and overflight. Stavros Lambrinidis, head of the EU delegation to the UN, also highlighted South China Sea
SILENCING CRITICS: In addition to blocking Taiwan, China aimed to prevent rights activists from speaking out against authoritarian states, a Cabinet department said The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday condemned transnational repression by Beijing after RightsCon, a major digital human rights conference scheduled to be held in Zambia this week, was abruptly canceled due to Chinese pressure over Taiwanese participation. This year’s RightsCon, the world’s largest conference discussing issues “at the intersection of human rights and technology,” was scheduled to take place from tomorrow to Friday in Lusaka, and expected to draw 2,600 in-person attendees from 150 countries, along with 1,100 online participants. However, organizers were forced to cancel the event due to behind-the-scenes pressure from China, the ministry said, expressing its “strongest condemnation”
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said it expects its 2-nanometer (2nm) chip capacity to grow at a compound annual rate of 70 percent from this year to 2028. The projection comes as five fabs begin volume production of 2-nanometer chips this year — two in Hsinchu and three in Kaohsiung — TSMC senior vice president and deputy cochief operating officer Cliff Hou (侯永清) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Silicon Valley, California, last week. Output in the first year of 2-nanometer production, which began in the fourth quarter of last year, is expected to
Taiwan’s economy grew far faster than expected in the first quarter, as booming demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications drove a surge in exports, spilling over into investment and consumption, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. GDP growth was 13.69 percent year-on-year during the January-to-March period, beating the DGBAS’ February forecast by 2.23 percentage points and marking the most robust growth in nearly four decades, DGBAS senior official Chiang Hsin-yi (江心怡) told a news conference in Taipei. The result was powered by exports, which remain the backbone of Taiwan’s economy, Chiang said. Outbound shipments jumped 51.12 percent year-on-year to
RSS