Compensation for former freeway toll collectors will not follow an agreement with the Former Freeway Toll Collectors Self-Help Organization and instead is to be need-based, the Ministry of Labor announced yesterday, sparking a protest by some of the group’s members.
Only about NT$540 million (US$17.8 million) from a total of NT$600 million donated by the Ministry of Labor, Ministry of Transportation and Communications and Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection Co (FETC) is to be disbursed among former toll workers who were laid off after the implementation of electronic toll collection, Department of Employment Relations Director Wang Hou-wei (王厚偉) said.
Any remaining funds are to be returned to the donors, he added.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
Hou confirmed that individual payments would be less than specified by a formula agreed to last year by Minister Without Portfolio Lin Wan-i (林萬億) and then-minister of labor Kuo Fong-yu (郭芳煜), which called for toll collectors to receive a sum equal to 1.6 percent of their average salaries multiplied by their years of service.
“The final subsidy is different from what was originally stated, because we are not giving them something to which they are legally entitled,” Hou said, citing language in last year’s agreement stipulating that payments should be based on “special family circumstances” and the “need for social assistance.”
He declined to comment on the legality of other elements of the agreement, including the labor ministry’s refusal to implement terms calling for compensation for FETC’s failure to meet an obligation to find jobs for most of the former toll collectors, as well as the self-help association’s protest costs.
“We explained to them at the time that there would be two overarching principles: helping the truly needy and including all of those laid off,” Hou said, confirming that the size of payments had been reduced to allow for toll collectors who are not members of the association to receive compensation.
While the association asked for compensation for 289 members, a total of 944 former toll collectors are to receive compensation, he added.
“We have to examine their overall conditions: some self-help association members own several properties or have close NT$1 million in savings,” Hou said.
Dozens of association members protested outside the labor ministry in Taipei prior to the final announcement, followed by a rally outside the Taipei High Administrative Court.
They claimed the Executive Yuan and the labor ministry are seeking to blur compensation terms to avoid fully implementing last year’s agreement.
“We have decided to file a lawsuit and protest, because we were deceived,” said Sun Hsiu-luan (孫秀鑾), former president of the association.
“If the government wants to compensate nonmembers, that is its business, but it cannot violate the terms of the agreement with us to accomplish that,” organization consultant Susan Chen (陳素香) said.
“We cannot accept the government breaking its promise, which it used as an example of a political accomplishment the previous administration [of former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九)] could not achieve,” National Alliance for Workers of Closed Factories director Wu Ching-ju (吳靜如) said.
Last year’s agreement was announced on the same day Premier Lin Chuan (林全) held a high-profile forum with several civic and labor groups. It quickly drew criticism, with opponents saying it provided overly generous compensation to the self-help organization’s members, who were not originally entitled to severance pay or pension benefits as they were hired on annual contracts.
Labor rights advocates have contended that the former toll collectors should still be entitled to benefits because most were rehired for the same position, saying that the government has used legal loopholes to deny the workers benefits they would have been entitled to if hired as regular employees.
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