A hunger strike by four members of the Former Toll Collectors Self-Help Organization enters its eighth day today as the rest of the group continues a string of protests across Taipei.
Two former toll collectors and two labor activists have not eaten since Thursday last week, with their hunger strike clocking in at more than 150 hours as of last night.
Labor activist Chen Su-hsiang (陳素香), although visibly tired, said she had become used to the nagging pain in her stomach by the fifth day of the strike and was prepared to continue it indefinitely.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
“I felt drowsy at one point and basically slept through the second day, but today I feel more alert,” she said yesterday from a cluster of large tents in front of the Ministry of Transportation.
A blood glucose test on the four hunger strikers showed dangerously low results.
Wearing their signature orange T-shirts, the self-help organization’s members headed toward the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) headquarters in the early afternoon, only to be stopped by police before they reached the building.
“The government is eager to bail out corporations in charge of build-operate-transfer projects when they lose money, yet fail to provide workers with their rightful severance packages,” labor activist Kuo Kuan-chun (郭冠均) said.
The group staged another protest outside Taipei Railway Station later in the day, threatening to paralyze railway operations or other transportation services tomorrow, the day before the nine-in-one elections.
The former toll collectors lost their jobs after the ministry switched to a distance-based electronic toll collection system in January, removing all toll booths and making about 1,000 people redundant.
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