Members of the Taoyuan Flight Attendants’ Union are to hold a 24-hour sit-in in front of the Ministry of Labor on Thursday next week to protest EVA Airways’ treatment of flight attendants following a 20-day strike that ended in July.
The airline’s flight attendants launched the strike through the union on June 20. Before the strike, the company warned airline employees in a notice that it would need to cancel staff discount tickets if a strike occurred, but that flight attendants willing to work during a strike would still receive discount tickets.
On July 6, the airline and the union signed a collective agreement stating that negotiations over discount tickets would begin within two months after the end of the strike.
Four meetings have so far been held, but no deal has been reached.
The union said that the issue of differential treatment remains unresolved even after it negotiated with EVA Air for two months, adding that the airline insisted at negotiations on Wednesday last week that flight attendants who went on strike must wait 18 months before being eligible for discount tickets.
The union wants to continue negotiations on the discount tickets, but EVA Air refuses to schedule another meeting, it added.
“The public needs to know the airline’s malicious deeds since the strike so that the government can make a ruling that is fair to the workers,” the union said.
The union said it is asking EVA Air flight attendants to appeal to the public by writing the word “fair” on their hands, taking a photograph and posting it on social media.
Flight attendants should add a description of how airline management has treated them since the strike, and end the post with #flightforfair and another hashtag that accuses management of imposing a “one company, two systems” policy for flight attendants, it added.
EVA Air said that it is complying with the collective agreement by making flight attendants who went on strike eligible on Aug. 6 to all zonal employee discount (ZED) tickets, except for ZED tickets from EVA Air and Uni Air.
Eligibility for ZED tickets from EVA Air and Uni Air would begin next year, the airline said.
The flight attendants’ eligibility for various discount tickets, except for free tickets, would be restored on Jan. 1, 2021, while their eligibility for the free tickets would be restored on June 19, 2022, EVA Air said.
The Ministry of Labor is to hold its fourth investigative hearing on the matter at 3:30pm today.
The union plans to hold a news conference on Wednesday to call for the Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Transportation and Communications to intervene on the flight attendants’ behalf.
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