Labor activists yesterday blasted the record of former Council of Labor Affairs minister Jennifer Wang (王如玄) after she was selected by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Eric Chu (朱立倫) to be his running mate.
“She used to step on and oppress labor, so how is it possible that she would look after labor interests if elected?” Former Freeway Toll Collectors Self-Help Organization president Sun Hsiu-luan (孫秀鑾) said during a protest outside the KMT’s headquarters in Taipei.
Wang hired a large team of lawyers and budgeted more than NT$25 million (US$757,415 at current exchange rates) to file lawsuits against workers, while making controversial comments, including one about the reasonableness of a NT$22,000 monthly salary.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
Activists also cited an attempt by Wang to lower minimum salary requirements for laid-off workers.
“As minister, she just focused on reducing unemployment, with the effect that salary levels for all college graduates fell,” National Alliance for Workers of Closed Factories member Lu Chih-hung (盧其宏) said, criticizing Wang for encouraging companies to offer low-paying jobs to recent college graduates.
Wang also reopened labor compensation cases from factory closings more than 20 years earlier while minister, seeking to sue the laid-off workers to recover money the government gave them while it sought to recover pension and back pay from the companies in question, Lu said.
“The fact that Chu has picked someone like this as his running mate shows that he is unwilling see the government shoulder its responsibility for workers’ unemployment,“ Lu said, adding that Chu’s handling of the plight of former freeway toll collectors was also telling.
Labor activists had rallied outside the KMT building to protest what they said was Chu’s breaking of a January promise to meet with them to the discuss the plight of former toll collectors, who were laid off when the government switched to electronic toll collections.
The demonstrators promised to “follow [Chu] like a shadow” until a meeting is arranged.
At an earlier protest, about 50 residents of New Taipei City’s Sinjhuang District (新莊) smeared what they said was a mixture of mud and excrement onto a cut-out of Chu, shouting he was a “runaway” mayor who facilitated “corrupt speculation.”
They said rezoning plans approved by Chu’s administration failed to compensate them fairly for the demolition of their homes near the Fu Jen Catholic University MRT Station.
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