About 2,000 workers and labor rights advocates staged a rally in Taipei yesterday afternoon to urge the three presidential candidates to heed labor rights issues.
The protesters appealed to the candidates to raise the labor pension fund’s benchmark rate and to close the gap in wages between contract workers and formal employees.
Formosa Petrochemical Mailiao Plant Workers’ Union director Lin Hung-chun (林鴻鈞), who traveled from Yunlin County to take part in the protest, said that there is a huge gap between the salaries received by formal employees and contract employees at the plant.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
Contract workers make up a substantial proportion of the plant’s staff and sometimes have to work 12 hours per day, but they are only paid one-third of the wages of formal employees, he said.
As the group passed in front of the Legislative Yuan, the protesters switched on more than 100 alarms they had brought with them and hurled them over the building’s walls, saying that it was a “wake-up call” to the legislators that if they continue to pass legislation that is unfavorable to workers, more protests would follow.
National Alliance for Workers of Closed Factories member Wu Chia-hung (吳嘉浤) criticized the Ministry of Labor’s cancelation of some national holidays, which he said was the result of an alliance of seven industrial and commercial groups putting pressure on the Executive Yuan last month.
“Workers protested the bill for six months to no avail, but the ministry canceled the holidays just one week after being pressed by industrial and commercial groups. The ministry obviously has double standards,” he said.
Protesters staged a performance by covering workers lying in a blocked-off section of a road with a large ballot bearing portraits of the three presidential candidates as a protest against the candidates’ reluctance to make commitments to safeguard workers’ interests.
“We thought voting could change our fates, but we were wrong. Voting is the government’s way of pinning us down,” a protester said.
The protesters later tore up the ballot.
According to what was written on the ballot, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Eric Chu (朱立倫) has “no chance of winning” and therefore put forward “perfunctory” labor rights policies; Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) response to labor rights groups appeals are a just a “touchstone” of her supposed presidency; while People First Party presidential candidate James Soong’s (宋楚瑜) labor rights platform is “as worthless as dirt.”
Taoyuan Confederation of Trade Unions secretary-general Lin Chia-wei (林佳瑋) said long working hours and low wages are prevalent in the municipality and called on the presidential candidates to raise the labor pension fund’s benchmark rates to provide better care for retired workers.
The protesters later tossed about 150 smoke grenades toward the presidential office from behind barbed wire barricades, to symbolize that they face a “cloudy future.”
Police officers stationed on-site rushed to remove the grenades and said the protesters’ actions were illegal.
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