An "anti-layoff" alliance organized by 12 labor unions petitioned the Economic Development Advisory Conference yesterday, and asked the Executive Yuan to organize a ministerial committee to solve the unemployment problem.
The 150 protesters doubted whether the conference would help ease unemployment while government officials expect it to find solutions to stimulate the sluggish economy. Among those attending the conference are Robert Tsao (曹興誠), president of the United Microelectronics Corp, and Chen Yung-cheng (陳永誠), executive editor of the Chinese-language newspaper Commercial Times, of the China Times group.
Both UMC and the China Times group have laid off a number of their employees.
"How can capitalists like Tsao, who has laid off his employees in Taiwan and is evaluating the investment environment in China, be chosen to attend the conference?" a statement released by the anti-layoff alliance asked.
Members of the alliance include laid-off employees from the China Times, Nankang Tire, Chinese Automobile, the Taiwan Shin Sheng Daily News, the Mass Communication Alliance and the Taipei chapter of the Taiwan Confederation of Trade Unions.
The alliance is seeking more participation from labor unions, and planning on further protests this week.
The conference did not give any official response to the petition, but Chen Chu (陳菊), chairwoman of the Council of Labor Affairs, said that they were solving the high-unemployment rate.
"The council has relaxed restrictions on applications for unemployment subsidies and is trying to offer more employment opportunities," Chen said.
In late May, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) put forward the conference idea in the hope of finding a remedy for the nation's sluggish economy. The anti-layoff alliance urged the government to follow the example of the previous KMT government at the end of 1996, when it organized a ministerial committee to solve unemployment problems.
Ironically, the discussion group on employment was the last choice for those attending the conference, who were allowed to choose which topics they would like to discuss.
Some of those attending even switched to other groups yesterday morning.
The group only has 13 attendees and none of them represent corporate interests, while other discussion groups have at least 20 attendees.
NO RECIPROCITY: Taipei has called for cross-strait group travel to resume fully, but Beijing is only allowing people from its Fujian Province to travel to Matsu, the MAC said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized an announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism that it would lift a travel ban to Taiwan only for residents of China’s Fujian Province, saying that the policy does not meet the principles of reciprocity and openness. Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan (饒權) yesterday morning told a delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in a meeting in Beijing that the ministry would first allow Fujian residents to visit Lienchiang County (Matsu), adding that they would be able to travel to Taiwan proper directly once express ferry
FAST RELEASE: The council lauded the developer for completing model testing in only four days and releasing a commercial version for use by academia and industry The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) yesterday released the latest artificial intelligence (AI) language model in traditional Chinese embedded with Taiwanese cultural values. The council launched the Trustworthy AI Dialogue Engine (TAIDE) program in April last year to develop and train traditional Chinese-language models based on LLaMA, the open-source AI language model released by Meta. The program aims to tackle the information bias that is often present in international large-scale language models and take Taiwanese culture and values into consideration, it said. Llama 3-TAIDE-LX-8B-Chat-Alpha1, released yesterday, is the latest large language model in traditional Chinese. It was trained based on Meta’s Llama-3-8B
STUMPED: KMT and TPP lawmakers approved a resolution to suspend the rate hike, which the government said was unavoidable in view of rising global energy costs The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it has a mandate to raise electricity prices as planned after the legislature passed a non-binding resolution along partisan lines to freeze rates. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers proposed the resolution to suspend the price hike, which passed by a 59-50 vote. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) voted with the KMT. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT said the resolution is a mandate for the “immediate suspension of electricity price hikes” and for the Executive Yuan to review its energy policy and propose supplementary measures. A government-organized electricity price evaluation board in March
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has