Fighting broke out at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee yesterday as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-controlled committee approved a controversial amendment to the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法).
Torn papers and signs littered the committee chamber’s floor and desks after a 20-minute fracas that saw Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators throw themselves against a cordon of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers.
“How can you bully us like this,” KMT Legislator Alicia Wang (王育敏) shouted, grappling at the arms of several DPP legislators as fellow KMT members yelled for the consideration of a motion to overturn a review conducted on Oct. 5.
Photo: Chien Jung-feng, Taipei Times
KMT Legislator Arthur Chen (陳宜民) climbed onto the first row of desks in front of DPP Legislator Wu Yu-chin (吳玉琴), one of the committee co-conveners, and engaged in a tussle with DPP Legislator Chiu Chih-wei (邱志偉) before being pushed off by DPP Legislator Su Chen-ching (蘇震清).
The fracas erupted after Wu refused to take up a KMT motion following the official reading of minutes from the committee’s Oct. 5 meeting, instead relying on the DPP majority guarding her desk to confirm the minutes despite objections.
DPP members of the committee had moved to send the amendment directly to cross-caucus negotiations when the review began earlier this month, with the confirmation of the minutes being the final step before the amendment leaves the committee, following several weeks of break as the legislature held confirmation hearings for nominees for the Council of Grand Justices.
Photo: CNA
The amendment has stirred controversy, as it seeks to cut seven national holidays with the implementation of a five-day workweek with one mandatory day off and a “flexible rest day.”
After KMT legislators prevented the confirmation of the minutes by occupying the co-conveners’ desk on Wednesday, dozens of DPP legislators the same night locked themselves in the committee chamber and used their bodies to block the desks the moment the doors opened yesterday.
KMT legislators lined up in front of their DPP counterparts shortly after entering the committee chamber, claiming to be waiting to take their turn for “procedural remarks” and clamoring for Wu to yield the floor.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
“All we demand is that the recordings [of the earlier meeting] be brought forward to correct the minutes,” KMT caucus whip Sufin Siluko (廖國棟) said.
After the minutes were confirmed, Sufin Siluko led other KMT lawmakers to the Control Yuan and Taipei District Court to protest, saying that the DPP’s “railroading” of inaccurate minutes made the party liable for falsification of documents.
Meanwhile, Wu told a news conference that the meeting was conducted fully in accordance with legislative procedures.
She said she decided that the committee would not consider a proposal filed by the KMT caucus about the proceedings of the Oct. 5 meeting, because it did not address the proceedings, but merely raised procedural questions.
The committee would have considered a motion to review the proceedings only if there was a mistake or omission, she added.
She put her decision to a vote, and it was approved 7-0, because no KMT legislator voted during the commotion.
She also rejected a proposal raised by the New Power Party (NPP) caucus because a caucus could not raise a proposal in a committee where it has less than three legislators, and only NPP Legislator Hung Tzu-yung (洪慈庸) is a member of the committee.
The amendment is a responsible legislation to ensure a five-day workweek, unify the nation’s various leave schemes and increase paid annual leave for employees, DPP caucus chief executive Wu Ping-jui (吳秉叡) said.
“Whoever is against the legislation does not have to support the DPP in the elections,” he added.
Wu Ping-jui accused the KMT and the NPP of employing double standards, as both demanded that hearings about the amendment be held, but they made no such demands when Wang chaired a committee meeting in July and approved a KMT amendment to the act.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
RSS