Hundreds of people held flags and banners and danced to electronic music as they shouted out their demands on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei yesterday at the annual “autumn fight (秋鬥)” calling for workers and minority rights.
The event’s convener, National Federation of Independent Trade Unions honorary chairman Lin Tzu-wen (林子文), said the electronic music this year was meant to help attract young people to the cause, because many appear to be passive toward politics despite often being among the working poor, a result of the current unjust social structure.
More than 40 protest groups nationwide representing labor unions, gay rights, farmers’ rights, environmental concerns, the anti-nuclear movement and housing rights partook in the “autumn fight.”
The annual “autumn fight” began 23 years ago as an annual labor rights protest rally and in recent years has come to include minority rights.
Lin said the groups all have separate demands, but they collectively represent a broader fight against social injustice.
People from different walks of life are facing injustice from employers and discrimination, and only when minority groups come together can their voices be heard, he said.
“We ask for a society that -centers on humans and humanity, in which the value of labor can be recognized,” he said.
Co-convener Kuo Ming-chu (郭明珠) of Raging Citizens Act Now said their main demand was “political justice, a fair economy and social justice.”
“Political justice is not only about the right to vote, but also to participate in policymaking; a fair economy is not limited to free competition in the labor market, but also includes a fair distribution of profits,” she said, adding that workers are not getting basic respect or a share of the benefits from the nation’s economic development that they work hard to accomplish, and some have even been asked to take unpaid leave.
Taiwan International Workers Association member Meriam said a vast number of foreign household workers in Taiwan were not -protected by the law concerning appropriate working hours or the right to switch employers, urging the government to modify the laws to better protect their working rights under the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法).
Chen Ping-hsuan (陳平軒), a member of Taiwan Rural Front, said farmers have joined hands with laborers to fight for their rights in view of recent controversial cases of farmland expropriation and water being used for industrial development over farmland.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS