Dozens of former Wintek Corporation employees laid off in December because of the economic crisis staged a demonstration outside the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) yesterday, asking the council to help them get their jobs back as the company recruits new workers amid rush orders.
“Wintek laid off employees — some of whom were very close to qualifying for retirement pension — based on the fact that they were suffering severe losses from the economic crisis,” said Chu Wei-li (朱維立) of the National Federation of Independent Trade Unions (NAFITU), which helped organize the protest. “Now that they’re experiencing booming business because of rush orders, they did nothing to protect these old employees.”
He said that rather than hire back the laid-off workers, Wintek was recruiting new ones.
Wintek produces parts for various electronic products such as cellphones, personal data assistants, notebook computers and flat panel displays. Last year, the company announced layoffs after suffering what it called a “record high loss in one quarter” — NT$1.7 billion (US$50 million) — during the fourth quarter.
However, because of rush orders, the company’s business has improved substantially since the beginning of this year.
The company’s latest financial statement showed that, its gross sales revenue last month had reached more than NT$2 billion, a 14.57 percent growth over February’s sales.
A former Wintek employee surnamed Cheng (鄭), who had worked at the company for almost 15 years, said she would have qualified for retirement pension of more than NT$1 million by March 16 had she not been fired.
“But now I have nothing. I’m old, so it’s not likely I will be able to find a job anytime soon,” Cheng said.
“The Wintek case is not isolated — this is a strategy that many businesses are taking to meet growing demand amid rush orders,” NAFITU chairman Chen Te-liang (陳德亮) said. “They’re doing so because they don’t have to take care of labor and health insurance or retirement pension for seasonal workers.”
“This is wrong. The company keeps all the profit when it’s making money, but it’s the employees that face the consequences when business goes bad,” Chen said.
CLA official Wang Hou-wei (王厚偉) said Wintek may have failed to follow legal procedures in laying off its workers and promised to help.
Wintek, however, said it had fulfilled its legal requirement in notifying former employees of the layoff in advance and paying them up to their last day at work.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s license has expired and it cannot simply be restarted, the Executive Yuan said today, ahead of national debates on the nuclear power referendum. The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County was disconnected from the nation’s power grid and completely shut down on May 17, the day its license expired. The government would prioritize people’s safety and conduct necessary evaluations and checks if there is a need to extend the service life of the reactor, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference. Lee said that the referendum would read: “Do