Union demands for guarantees on labor rights during the privatization of Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan's largest telecom company, yesterday gained strong backing from unionists around the world meeting in Berlin.
Dozens of labor-union leaders from Union Network International (UNI) urged Shieh Jhy-wey (謝志偉), Taiwan's new representative to Germany, to reflect on international labor trends and inform Taiwan's government of their concerns.
UNI is the largest international grouping of individual trade unions. It brings together over 900 unions representing more than 15 million members. At the UNI Telecom World Meeting held yesterday in Berlin, more than 150 representatives of more than 100 unions from Europe, Asia and Africa gathered to discuss labor matters.
A dozen labor-union leaders from UNI, including Neil Anderson, the head of UNI Telecom, and Larry Cohen, executive vice president of Communications Workers of America, handed a petition to Shieh, asking him to forward it to President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
"We hope the letter, which contains the common opinion of labor unions around the world, will be passed onto your President Chen,"Anderson said.
The petition cited "disasters" which privatization had inflicted on telecommunications networks in other countries. It urged Chen to review "poorly designed strategies" for privatizing Chunghwa Telecom.
According to Chang Hsu-chung (張緒中), president of the Chunghwa Telecom Workers Union (CTWU), company management plans to sell 15 percent of the firm's shares in the form of American Depositary Receipts (ADR) before seeking possible underwriters for the ADR-related transactions in the middle of July.
ADRs are certificates that trade on the US stock market, but which represent non-US stock. They allow US investors to buy shares in non-US companies.
"The real value of the company's properties has not been carefully evaluated. Now the government is selling the company's stock without paying attention to the rights of workers," said Chang, who is also in Berlin for the meeting.
Taiwanese labor representatives were accompanied by their counterparts from countries including Japan, Britain, Indonesia, the US, Senegal, Mexico, New Zealand and others.
Representatives of labor unions in Germany also described their experiences of privatization, saying that the government had to accept the possibility of negative consequences, such as a significant loss of jobs.
UNI has also launched a collaborative petition in which member unions from different countries will send more than 1,000 postcards to Chen and Premier Frank Hsieh (
Shieh said that he fully understood the action being taken by the union.
"It's respectable for anyone to fight for rights that belong to him. Adopting legal methods in defending labor rights is reasonable and acceptable. I will be glad to pass on the words of foreign labor unions to Taiwan's government," he said.
Shieh added that the letter would reach the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by the end of this week.
The CTWU, which has 28,000 members, will stage a large strike on Tuesday to spotlight "poorly designed privatization policies."
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