The Taoyuan Union of Pilots is considering a strike during the Mid-Autumn Festival in September.
The union, formed by 800 China Airlines (CAL, 中華航空) pilots and 500 EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空) pilots, held a protest outside the Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday morning.
Nearly 70 percent of its members have cast a ballot on whether to strike, and it is very likely there would be enough votes for a strike, it said, adding that the results are to be announced on Tuesday next week.
Photo: Chen I-chia, Taipei Times
“We decided to hold a vote on the option of a strike because the management of both airlines have refused to agree to any of the demands made by the union’s representatives during arbitration meetings held by the Taoyuan Department of Labor. They rejected our demands on the grounds that either the union is invading management rights or they were not authorized to make any promises. As such, we have no choice but to resort to a vote on whether the union should exercise its right to strike,” it said in a statement.
It also claimed that management at both airlines have tried to interfere in the vote, which the airlines deny.
Minister of Transportation and Communications Wu Hong-mo (吳宏謀) should not give media the impression that there is no room left for negotiations by discussing with the Ministry of Labor how much time would be needed to warn consumers ahead of a strike, it said.
“We have stated that there will not be any sudden strike,” the union said. “Both the Ministry of Transportation and Communications and the Ministry of Labor should use their administrative authority to persuade the airlines to stop any behavior that would provoke fear among union members and prevent them casting their votes. They should ask the airlines to engage in negotiations with the union after it secures the right to hold a strike, and resolve the biggest crisis in the [nation’s] aviation history.”
The union has “tried to lay out our demands and negotiate with the airlines, one demand after another, but EVA Airways has refused to negotiate with us on the grounds that it is the right of management,” union chairwoman Lee Hsin-yen (李信燕) said.
While Lee said the union would give at least a three-day warning before launching a strike, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) said that would not give the airlines enough time to respond.
“We hope that the union and the airlines could continue to negotiate rationally,” CAA Flight Standards Division director Clark Lin (林俊良) said.
CAL said it hoped to continue negotiations, but the union should not say that it refused to talk to them simply because it did not accept all of the union’s demands.
CAL said in a statement that it signed a pact with the union in 2015 covering seven issues, including salaries and the number of days off for pilots, and reached an agreement in 2016 about bonuses for pilots who chose to postpone their holidays.
Last year, the union and CAL reached a consensus on six other issues, although those have yet to be included in a collective agreement, the statement said.
EVA Airways said that it would meet with representatives from the CAA, the labor ministry and the union.
“We should reach a conclusion pretty soon if the union is willing to continue the negotiations,” the airline said.
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