A strike by China Airlines’ (CAL) flight attendants has ended, with most of their demands being met. When the strike started, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) signaled her solidarity, saying: “I will walk down this road with everyone and I will not let them, and I will not let you, feel like you are on your own.”
Within 24 hours of his appointment, CAL chairman Ho Nuan-hsuan (何煖軒) agreed to all seven of the union’s demands. This was not only a victory for the flight attendants; it was a victory for workers in general. Encouraged by the success of the Taoyuan Flight Attendants Union and despite having originally opposed the strike, the China Airlines Employees Union laid out demands for similar treatment, with the two sides reaching an agreement yesterday, averting a potential strike by the union on Friday.
CAL is a perfect example of the kind of back-scratching culture the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government used to operate, handing out positions as rewards for services rendered. CAL senior management had come to be known as an old boys’ network controlling the firm’s resources. The guiding principle was that the master and the party-state were paramount, with CAL treating its foundation with derision and suppressing workers’ demands. When faced with external competition, its response was to further clamp down on its base and reduce costs, to the extent that its operational efficiency fell far below that of other airlines.
Last year, CAL carried about 4 million more passengers than EVA Airways, but its profits fell short of EVA’s. Each CAL flight attendant is estimated to serve 4,587 passengers per year, compared with 2,960 passengers for each EVA flight attendant.
The relationship between the KMT and CAL is a distillation of the party’s relationship with many major corporations, insomuch as these corporations rely on special privileges or tax breaks from the government to give them a running start.
The KMT controls business and commercial organizations — such as the Chinese National Federation of Industries (CNFI), the Republic of China General Chamber of Commerce (ROCCOC) and the Chinese National Association of Industry and Commerce, Taiwan (CNAIC) — and the heads of many of these organization are members of the KMT’s Central Standing Committee, the center of its power; the party is essentially a collective entity of political and economic groups.
The KMT has a fear of workers — which is not surprising given its history with the Chinese Communist Party — and consequently tries to suppress workers whenever it can. Policywise, and in the laws it promulgates, it has traditionally favored businesses, so Taiwan’s development has always been skewed against workers and favored capital interests. Many major companies have profited from suppressing workers’ incomes and benefits, and when the cost of labor is cheaper abroad, the corporations move overseas, lock, stock and barrel. This is why, over the past 20 years, GDP has grown and corporations have turned a profit, and yet workers’ salaries have stagnated. This is one of the causes of the nation’s unfair distribution of income.
Workers have taken note of the success of the CAL flight attendants’ strike and many unions are trying their hand at getting similar benefits. However, the six big business collectives — including the CNFI, the ROCCOC and the CNAIC — are coming up with a robust response, postponing this year’s negotiations on minimum wage increases to protest the government agreeing to retain seven national holidays.
Relations between workers and businesses are fraught, an omen of stormy times ahead, and the government must be prepared to act as an arbitrator between the two sides.
The government should use the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) to guarantee workers’ basic rights and to ensure that talks between workers and businesses are conducted according to the principles of transparency, fairness and reason, and to avoid unilateral changes being made to labor conditions.
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