Taiwan Motor union to fight on

The labor union of state-owned Taiwan Motor Transport Corp (台汽) yesterday vowed to continue its fight against privatization after wrapping up a series of protests, including camping out for nine days in front of the Council of Labor Affairs.

Protesters were upset at the Ministry of Transportation and Communications' plan to allow employees to collectively form a new passenger transport company named Kuo-kung (國光) to replace Taiwan Motor. The union says the capital that will go into the new bus line should instead be paid to Taiwan Motor employees.

The president of the union yesterday had his head shaved in front of the ministry to demonstrate the union's determination to fight privatization. Union representatives threatened to prevent Kuo-kung from commencing operations on July 1.

Money-losing Taiwan Motor is burdened with major debts and relies heavily on state coffers to maintain operations. Taiwan Motor administrators say that without privatization, the company's inevitable bankruptcy would jeopardize employees' rights.

The corporation said that in the interests of the rights of employees, workers were encouraged collectively to establish their own company with the severance packages they will receive when the company ceases operations on June 30.

Currently, 1,093 employees of the company have signed up to do just that.

But the union accused the ministry and the company of forcing employees to invest. "Many of us signed up for the joint investment project while knowing nothing of the details of how it would work. Now we have discovered many flaws and would like to withdraw from the deal," said Tsai Wen-hsiung (蔡萬祥), the union's president.

As Taiwan Motor has allocated capital to establish Kuo-kung for those of its employees who have agreed to invest in the new company pending the payment of severance pay, the union alleges that doing so was illegal because a company is not allowed to grant a loan to other companies except in the course of its own business.

"Besides, the total capital that Kuo-kung will receive from the state-owned company's current employees is no more than NT$300 million -- not enough to guarantee smooth operations," the union said. "Also, Taiwan Motor's profitable routes have been given to companies other than Kuo-kung."

Tsai also said that salaries and employment conditions for Kuo-kung workers would be inferior to those of other private companies -- and that the base pay would be less than stipulated by law.

Tsai said that for those reasons protesters who had signed up to invest in Kuo-kung now wished to withdraw from the investment.

But Kuo-kung's management and former employees of the state-owned corporation denied all the accusations. The ministry also said that withdrawal of investment was impossible as legally binding agreements had been signed and the company had been set up.

Frank Fan (范植谷), president of Taiwan Motor, said that the protest was purely against privatization in order to maintain union members' privileges in a state-owned business, such as access to fair pay while working shorter hours than their counterparts in the private sector. He said Kuo-kung should be able to operate with loans from banks, "just like all other businesses do."

Lee Hung-shang (李宏生), Kuo-kung's president, said Taiwan Motor corporation had lent money to its own employees rather than to other companies with the approval of the Cabinet.