Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Jian-yu (陳建宇) on Wednesday said that he remains optimistic that the dispute between the Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) and its labor union would be resolved before the Lunar New Year holiday, adding that the ministry has prepared a backup plan if negotiations between the two parties fail.
Chen made the statement at a press conference to unveil the ministry’s plans to transport homebound passengers during the Lunar New Year holiday — the most important and longest holiday of the year.
On Tuesday, the THSRC labor union continued to insist that the company pay the overtime pay that it owes to employees first, or they would go on strike on the Lunar New Year holiday as planned.
The union is scheduled to make its official announcement regarding the strike today.
Chen said that it was perfectly understandable and legitimate for the union to fight for the interests of its members, but it should handle the matter rationally and should not refuse to negotiate.
Chen added that the company has reserved NT$500 million (US$14.78 million) to cover the overtime pay once the administrative lawsuit regarding this matter is finalized, meaning that the company has shown goodwill to resolve the dispute.
“While the union has been working to resolve the issue, they should not forget their duty as a responsible ‘transportation man,’” Chen said.
“The company has been working hard to create a good corporate image, and people would think negatively about the company because of the strike,” he said.
Chen said he had also asked the Bureau of High Speed Rail, the government agency that supervises the operation of the THSRC, to consider if there are other alternative solutions to the quagmire.
He said the ministry is prepared to set up an ad hoc team to cope with the crisis should negotiations fail, adding that both the Directorate-General of Highways and Taiwan Railways Administration have enough capacity to absorb the passengers switched from the high-speed rail system.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the