Students’ rights to an education should always take priority over teachers’ labor rights, Minister of Education Wu Ching-chi (吳清基) said yesterday in response to complaints about teachers being denied the right to strike.
“I believe teachers understand that students’ right to an education has to take precedence over their rights as workers,” Wu said when approached for comment. “Without students, we won’t need teachers. If teachers sacrifice the rights of students to an education so they can go on strike, that will be unacceptable.”
The question of whether teachers should be allowed to form and participate in labor unions had been a controversial issue in Taiwan. Teachers had been barred from forming labor unions under the Republic of China Act that took effect on Nov. 1, 1929.
The National Teachers Association had argued that the issue was a matter of teachers’ rights, while some parental groups feared that students’ rights might be compromised if teachers were allowed to organize unions.
An amendment to the Labor Union Act (工會法) cleared the legislative floor on Tuesday, granting teachers the rights to organize and take part in labor unions.
However, they are not allowed to form labor unions within their own school. In other words, teachers can only form a labor union with teachers from other schools, thus making the unions a municipal or national level organization.
Although teachers are now free to form labor unions, they are still forbidden from launching strikes, as stipulated in the Settlement of Labor-Management Dispute Act (勞資爭議處理法).
Association chairman Liu Chin-hsu (劉欽旭) said the amendment would only allow teachers to establish “shell labor unions.”
However, Hsieh Kuo-ching (謝國清), chairman of the National Alliance of Parents Organization, said parents should feel relieved that teachers could not go on strike.
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