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.
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai
Four China Coast Guard ships briefly sailed through prohibited waters near Kinmen County, Taipei said, urging Beijing to stop actions that endanger navigation safety. The Chinese ships entered waters south of Kinmen, 5km from the Chinese city of Xiamen, at about 3:30pm on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement later the same day. The ships “sailed out of our prohibited and restricted waters” about an hour later, the agency said, urging Beijing to immediately stop “behavior that endangers navigation safety.” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) yesterday told reporters that Taiwan would boost support to the Coast Guard