Ground staff belonging to the Taiwan Airport Service Co (
Management and labor finally signed an agreement at 8pm.
The 335 Kaohsiung union members of the ground service provider voted on Sept. 22 in favor of going on strike over the Mid-Autumn Festival owing to salary and management disputes.
Taiwan Airport Service agreed in 1999 to pay its employees in Kaohsiung annual bonuses amounting to two months' salary, as well as a bonus of NT$6,000 per month, but the company converted the extra two months of pay into year-end bonuses in 2000, and only awarded the bonuses to certain employees, union members said.
At one point yesterday afternoon, the union was ready to sign the agreement and call off the strike. However, word that Taiwan Airport Service vice president Hsieh Yi-wen (謝逸文) had allegedly threatened to fire union members if they go ahead with the strike upset the workers, who said they would not return to the negotiating table unless Hsieh resigned.
Guo invited both labor and company representatives to meet in Kaohsiung's Department of Labor in order to resolve the crisis.
China Airlines, a major stockholder in Taiwan Airport Service Co, also held a board meeting yesterday afternoon.
Upon hearing of the breakdown in negotiations, Philip Wei (魏幸雄), board chairman of Taiwan Airport Service Co, authorized the removal of Hsieh from his position.
Negotiations resumed late yesterday afternoon, and a consensus was reached around 8pm.
The labor agreement included an amended wage structure, the details of which would be worked out at a later date.
The union also demanded that a labor representative be appointed to the board and that the company not take punitive action against union members during labor disputes.
According to Weng Shu-chung (
He apologized to the public for any undue stress caused by the strike threat.
Guo expressed satisfaction at the result of the negotiations, saying he hoped both parties could continue to communicate and build a better relationship.
Taiwan Airport Service rep-resents nearly 70 percent of ground staff at Kaohsiung International Airport, whose duties include luggage handling, ramp services, shuttle-bus operations, on-board meal delivery and cabin cleaning.
CROSS-STRAIT COLLABORATION: The new KMT chairwoman expressed interest in meeting the Chinese president from the start, but she’ll have to pay to get in Beijing allegedly agreed to let Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) around the Lunar New Year holiday next year on three conditions, including that the KMT block Taiwan’s arms purchases, a source said yesterday. Cheng has expressed interest in meeting Xi since she won the KMT’s chairmanship election in October. A source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a consensus on a meeting was allegedly reached after two KMT vice chairmen visited China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Director Song Tao (宋濤) in China last month. Beijing allegedly gave the KMT three conditions it had to
STAYING ALERT: China this week deployed its largest maritime show of force to date in the region, prompting concern in Taipei and Tokyo, which Beijing has brushed off Deterring conflict over Taiwan is a priority, the White House said in its National Security Strategy published yesterday, which also called on Japan and South Korea to increase their defense spending to help protect the first island chain. Taiwan is strategically positioned between Northeast and Southeast Asia, and provides direct access to the second island chain, with one-third of global shipping passing through the South China Sea, the report said. Given the implications for the US economy, along with Taiwan’s dominance in semiconductors, “deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority,” it said. However, the strategy also reiterated
‘BALANCE OF POWER’: Hegseth said that the US did not want to ‘strangle’ China, but to ensure that none of Washington’s allies would be vulnerable to military aggression Washington has no intention of changing the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Saturday, adding that one of the US military’s main priorities is to deter China “through strength, not through confrontation.” Speaking at the annual Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California, Hegseth outlined the US Department of Defense’s priorities under US President Donald Trump. “First, defending the US homeland and our hemisphere. Second, deterring China through strength, not confrontation. Third, increased burden sharing for us, allies and partners. And fourth, supercharging the US defense industrial base,” he said. US-China relations under
FRAUD ISSUES: The app meets none of Taiwan’s 15 cybersecurity standards, and in the past year, about 1,706 fraud cases have been identified on it The Ministry of the Interior yesterday ordered Taiwanese Internet service providers (ISPs) to block access to Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu (小紅書, also known as RedNote in English) for a year, after detecting hundreds of instances of fraud on the platform. The ISPs have been instructed to block access to the app to its more than 3 million users in Taiwan, effective immediately, Deputy Minister of the Interior Ma Shih-yuan (馬士元) told a news conference at the National Police Agency’s Fraud Prevention Center. The order is being implemented via protocols governing domain name system (DNS) response policy zones, he said. Xiaohongshu meets none
RSS