The Consumer's Foundation yesterday urged the Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA) to cancel the pre-sale of Moon Festival train tickets, starting on Aug. 28, if the railway's labor union decides to go ahead with a strike scheduled for the day of the festival.
The foundation vented its anger toward the TRA's refusal to hammer out a practical solution for passengers and for the way it initiated strike action.
"If the TRA cannot offer a response program for the strike before Aug. 26 [Tuesday], they should not proceed with the pre-sale on Aug. 28," said Chen Jung-hung (
The foundation pointed out that the TRA would be breaking the Consumer Protection Law (消費者保護法) if it insisted on going ahead with the pre-sale without guaranteeing a normal operation first.
Foundation lawyer B.F. Huang (黃碧芬) said that, according to the law, if a company fails to warn consumers about a product or service that could endanger health or property, and the consumer was in some way damaged by the product or service, the company must compensate the consumer. The compensation could be as high as three times the original price paid for the good or service, Huang said.
However, the TRA said the pre-sale would go ahead even if it could not reach an agreement with the union before Tuesday.
"The pre-sale will proceed if there are no special conditions. We cannot wait until the last day to sell the tickets," said Lu Chieh-shen (鹿潔身), deputy director of the TRA's transportation affairs department.
Chen said both the Ministry of Transportation and Communications and the TRA should make preparations for the possible strike.
He pointed out that the ministry should ensure the smooth operation of all alternative transportation on the day of the Moon Festival, which this year falls on Sept. 11. He also asked the ministry to map out a plan for traffic control on the nation's highways so they can function at full capacity during the festival period.
Chen also suggested that the TRA offers employees bonuses for working on Sept. 11 and informs the public in advance which trains will run that day.
The foundation also expressed disappointment in the strike action.
The union decided last month to stage a Moon Festival strike by holding a conference of members on Sept. 11. The union said it is concerned over privatization plans and the high-speed railway.
Huang said that civil servants were not allowed to strike and that the union did not meet the Union Law (
"Basically, their reasons for a strike are too weak, so that is why they dare not stage a proper strike but are using the conference to circumvent the laws," Huang said.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
China’s newest Type-076 amphibious assault ship has two strengths and weaknesses, wrote a Taiwanese defense expert, adding that further observations of its capabilities are warranted. Jiang Hsin-biao (江炘杓), an assistant researcher at the National Defense and Security Research, made the comments in a report recently published by the institute about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) military and political development. China christened its new assault ship Sichuan in a ceremony on Dec. 27 last year at Shanghai’s Hudong Shipyard, China’s Xinhua news agency reported. “The vessel, described as the world’s largest amphibious assault ship by the [US think tank] Center for Strategic and International
RSS