Five China Airlines (CAL) union representatives who were grounded for speaking at a demonstration are to resume their flight duties this week, the company said amid mounting public pressure.
The decision marked a victory for labor activists and their supporters, who accused the airline of violating labor regulations and suppressing union activities.
An online petition that expressed solidarity with the five union representatives — four flight attendants and one pilot — has drawn the support of more than 18,000 people.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
CAL spokesperson Jeffery Kuo (郭興長) said on Friday night that previous accounts that the quintet would be grounded for at least one month were “misreported.”
He said the grounded employees were subject to a three-day ground-based training session on passenger cabin regulations and employee protocols from Wednesday to Friday.
The employees should be able to resume their posts as soon as this week, since they met all the requirements and passed their exams during the training session, Kuo added.
CAL had said earlier that the grounded staff required “anger management courses” for exhibiting “emotional behavior” that could threaten flight security, referring to their appearances on stage during a protest on Jan. 22.
The protest, which drew more than 1,000 people, was against the company’s reduction in employee year-end bonuses.
At a news conference outside the company’s offices yesterday, the union representatives said they would continue to keep a close eye on CAL, adding that the incident only served as a catalyst for reform, as the company had been urged to improve its working conditions.
CAL staff supportive of the movement would continue to pin yellow ribbons to their uniforms until the grounded employees return to their full duties, Taoyuan Confederation of Trade Unions secretary Lin Chia-wei (林佳瑋) said.
She blasted CAL for clamping down on freedom of expression, citing reported cases of managers removing yellow ribbons by hand against the will of their employees.
Labor activist Tu Kuang-yu (杜光宇) said it remained unclear if Taoyuan Pilots’ Union president Yang Kuang-hai (楊光海) would return to duty next week, as he has not been subject to any courses or “training sessions.”
Yang said he was “confined to a small room” over the past week and was told to study manuals on his own, unlike the grounded flight attendants, who received lectures on anger management together.
Greater Taoyuan Department of Labor Director Pan Hung-lin (潘鴻麟) warned CAL against its “impudent” behavior.
Additional reporting by CNA
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai