Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday said that the ministry is prepared to respond to repercussions from a possible strike by EVA Airways’ flight attendants.
The strike is likely to affect people traveling during the Dragon Boat Festival holiday next month or summer vacation, Lin told a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee in response to a question from Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Cheng Pao-ching (鄭寶清).
The ministry’s position is that the union should provide ample notice so people know when a strike is to take place, he said.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
“Labor action is a right, but if people do not know when a strike is to happen, it would affect their travel plans,” he said. “Regulations on requirements for notice of strikes should be made clearer to reduce uncertainty and the effect on travelers,” Lin said.
The ministry has conveyed its position to the Ministry of Labor, which is in charge of arbitrating disputes between workers and employers, he said, adding that it would respect the labor ministry’s decision.
Should the government require workers in the transportation sector to give notice of strikes, it should also ban employers from restricting unions as they prepare a strike, Cheng said.
Employers should not use substitutes to provide the same or similar services offered by striking workers, Cheng said.
The planned strike by EVA’s flight attendants has affected sales of the airline’s tickets, Lin said.
The transport ministry has asked EVA to submit a comprehensive emergency response plan and urged travel agencies to do the same, he said.
The transport ministry is prepared to handle all possible scenarios that might arise during the strike, he said, adding that people should be aware of developments and act accordingly.
The union could use a vote among employees on strike action as a bargaining chip to force EVA to negotiate, as people would choose other carriers out of fear that their travel plans would be disrupted, Lin told reporters later.
With voting to end on June 6, the union might call for a strike during Dragon Boat Festival from June 7 to 9 or some time during the summer vacation, he said, adding that the union has promised to announce the exact dates.
The airline has warned its flight attendants that a strike would hurt it financially and reduce employee benefits, Lin said, adding that it is uncertain which way the vote would go.
The labor ministry would determine whether the airline’s warnings ahead of the union’s vote constituted unfair labor practice, Lin said.
Both sides can still communicate, he said.
“We hope that the airline and the flight attendants would continue to negotiate,” he said.
“They are in the same boat and should treat each other nicely,” Lin said.
“EVA is a good company, and its workers and owners want to enhance its image and competitiveness,” he added.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater