The Ministry of Labor would pay the wages and other benefits owed to former employees of debt-ridden Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd (CPT, 中華映管), which filed for bankruptcy protection in September, Minister of Labor Hsu Ming-chun (許銘春) said yesterday.
The announcement came after Financial Supervisory Commission Chairman Wellington Koo (顧立雄) on Monday said that the flat-panel maker’s parent company, Tatung Co (大同), could lend money to its subsidiary to pay the owed wages.
Tatung holds a 40 percent stake in CPT.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
About 1,800 to 1,900 former employees who were laid off in August have yet to receive the wages owed to them, the CPT Trade Union said.
The officials’ remarks came after the union on Friday last week led about 700 former employees in a protest in front of Tatung’s headquarters in Taipei.
Hsu told a legislative committee hearing that the owed wages, severance pay and pension benefits would come from the government’s Arrears Wage Payment Fund, but the amount would fall short of the total NT$1.2 billion (US$39.34 million) owed.
In CPT’s case, the fund cannot be used to pay more than NT$900 million, Hsu said, citing the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法).
“We want the workers to receive payment as soon as possible,” she said.
Koo told a legislative committee hearing on Monday that under the rules for listed companies, Tatung could provide short-term loans to CPT on the condition that the latter repay the money within one year and Tatung’s board of directors approves the loans following a complete evaluation.
Koo also suggested that CPT use its assets as collateral to obtain loans from Tatung, which would ease Tatung shareholders’ concerns.
As of June, CPT had assets of NT$23.54 billion, and long and short-term debts totaling NT$39.31 billion.
The company was delisted from the Taiwan Stock Exchange in May.
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