TMTC workers protest closure

On the anniversary of President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) inauguration, approximately 100 members of the Taiwan Motor Transport Company (TMTC, 台汽客運) workers' union staged a protest in front of the presidential office yesterday, requesting special benefits and compensation before the state-owned company's imminent closure.

The government is officially trying to privatize the company but has failed to find private companies to take over because of its poor financial condition.

Company officials said a few people had manipulated co-workers and organized the protest to oppose the company's closure. The Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) said it already has an agreement regarding compensation with the company's employees.

Representatives of the union demonstrated in front of the Council of Labor Affairs throughout last week.

Yesterday's protest ended when union representatives sent a petition to the presidential office.

The union also threatened to protest at the airport tomorrow before the president departs for Latin America unless they receive a satisfactory response from the government.

"We may also block the company's privatization scheduled for July 1 with further protests," said Cheng Ya-chung (張雅君), a union representative.

The union claimed that 3,000 TMTC employees are facing unemployment and said that the government is obliged to pay them compensation.

But Frank Fan (范植谷), the company's chairman, said that the company's employees are already to benefit greatly from what the government has offered. "The protesters have no unemployment problem at all ... It's just a matter of whether they want to take the job offers we gave them," said Fan.

Fan blasted the union for being "anti-privatization and full of all sorts of excuses."

According to Fan, the protesters want to keep the company open as a state-owned enterprise so that more workers will benefit from a special pension system. The average age of the company's employees is 47 -- three years below the age at which staff who have worked at the company for over 15 years are entitled to a monthly pension. Fan says that this monthly pension, which is paid to eligible retirees for life, is more handsome than the regular lump sum pension received by TMTC employees who retire and do not meet the special pension requirements.

"The majority of protesters are being manipulated by a few who crave the monthly pension and believe that the company's survival would guarantee their current advantages -- such as better wages and fewer work hours -- over staff at private companies," said Fan.

One of the demands the protesters made of the government was the loosening of requirements for eligibility of the monthly pension.

Moreover, Fan said that public servants should consider it a "privilege" to retire and help reduce government expenditure. He said that the government would have great difficulty in meeting this request and it would also cause problems for the future privatization of other state-owned companies.

Ho-chen Tan (賀陳旦), vice minister of transportation and communications, stressed that the ministry had already reached an agreement with TMTC employees, "There may have been a misunderstanding but they didn't have to launch a protest." He said he would consult with the minister and determine if a further discussion with the union should be held.