The Taoyuan Flight Attendants’ Union and EVA Airways (長榮航空) yesterday signed an agreement to end a strike at midnight on Tuesday.
Union president Chao Kang (趙剛) and EVA chairman Steve Lin (林寶水) signed the agreement at the Taoyuan City Government, after Minister of Labor Hsu Ming-chun (許銘春) and Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) mediated talks.
Airline officials and union representatives at 2pm resumed negotiations for the third time as the strike entered its 17th day after starting at 4pm on June 20.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
A preliminary understanding of the agreement was that it was roughly based on the terms and conditions proposed by EVA on June 28, which a majority of the union’s members had voted in favor of, except for a few changes in language and an increase to the number of people the union would appoint as directors or supervisors on the firm’s board from 11 to 13.
Other terms in the June 28 version of the agreement include a pledge by the company not to take action against strikers and to cooperate with the union to end the strike; the provision of a bonus of NT$300 to NT$500 per trip; and to allow flight attendants to rest overnight on flights BR198 and BR108, which fly to Tokyo, from October to March, and on flight BR716 to Beijing from April to August, excluding May.
EVA would also host monthly employer-employee meetings; a quarterly board of directors’ or general manager’s meeting; and semi-annual reviews of duty rosters and work arrangements on regular, predetermined dates, it says.
A personnel evaluation committee would include five elected instructors, who would take turns; one coevaluator with the right to speak and vote; and one serving flight attendant to accompany the person being evaluated, it states.
The union’s board appointees would be entitled to 25 annual paid leave days for their participation and would have the company’s cooperation in arranging their schedules, the agreement says.
Meanwhile, the union described as a breakthrough EVA dropping Articles 1, 2 and 5 from its list of demands in the so-called “peace agreement.”
Article 1 said that union members should not “bully, discriminate or criticize” company employees, and refrain from making comments or taking actions that are “illegal or otherwise inappropriate.”
Article 2 would have banned the union from spreading “untrue comments” or “speaking against” the company, executives or shareholders or risk a NT$500,000 fine, with each union member’s remarks counted separately toward calculating the fine.
Article 5 would have required the union to give a 30-day notice prior to beginning a strike during the agreement’s stipulated effective period, or “shoulder all costs, including criminal consequences.”
The union also agreed not to call a strike in the next three years as long as EVA takes no action against its members for having taken part in the latest strike and to return within the next three days passports, Mainland Travel Permits for Taiwan Residents and EVA employee identification cards to striking members.
EVA later issued a statement apologizing to the public for the inconvenience and social disturbance the strike had caused.
As the union’s commitment not to go on strike for the next three years eliminated the need for advance notice of a strike and workplace bullying is already illegal, the company does not see the agreement as a concession, EVA attorney Chen Yi-hsuan (沈以軒) said.
As of yesterday, the strike had resulted in the cancelation of 1,439 flights and affected 278,420 travelers, the Ministry of Transportation and Communication said.
EVA’s transportation capacity dipped to a low of about 40 percent at the beginning of the strike before recovering to 60 to 70 percent, it said.
Travel agents and EVA have reached a settlement to cover the former’s financial losses, while individual travelers delayed for more than six hours are to receive compensation for additional lodging, dining and transportation costs of no more than US$250, it added.
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
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
NO CHANGE: The TRA makes clear that the US does not consider the status of Taiwan to have been determined by WWII-era documents, a former AIT deputy director said The American Institute in Taiwan’s (AIT) comments that World War-II era documents do not determine Taiwan’s political status accurately conveyed the US’ stance, the US Department of State said. An AIT spokesperson on Saturday said that a Chinese official mischaracterized World War II-era documents as stating that Taiwan was ceded to the China. The remarks from the US’ de facto embassy in Taiwan drew criticism from the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation, whose director said the comments put Taiwan in danger. The Chinese-language United Daily News yesterday reported that a US State Department spokesperson confirmed the AIT’s position. They added that the US would continue to
The number of Chinese spouses applying for dependent residency as well as long-term residency in Taiwan has decreased, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday, adding that the reduction of Chinese spouses staying or living in Taiwan is only one facet reflecting the general decrease in the number of people willing to get married in Taiwan. The number of Chinese spouses applying for dependent residency last year was 7,123, down by 2,931, or 29.15 percent, from the previous year. The same census showed that the number of Chinese spouses applying for long-term residency and receiving approval last year stood at 2,973, down 1,520,
RSS