The National Freeway Bureau yesterday said it has extended Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection Co’s deadline to find jobs for former freeway toll collectors by a month from Monday.
Failing to deliver will lead to a daily fine of NT$500,000, the bureau added.
Bureau data showed that among the 942 former freeway toll collectors, 487 accepted five months of salary as severance pay provided by the company. However, 455 indicated that they wished to find jobs with the company or within its group. As of yesterday, only 99 were working in jobs provided by the company.
Meanwhile, 56 have accepted job offers, but have yet to report to the new jobs, and 93 left soon after they reported to the new jobs. Another 101 had their job requests turned down and did not reapply.
A total of 106 have not showed up for any job interviews.
Minister of Transportation and Communications Yeh Kuang-shih (葉匡時) met with the self-help group representing the former freeway toll-fee collectors, including five labor group representatives who attended as consultants.
The bureau’s business division head Peng Huan-ju (彭煥儒) said the group cited the company as offering a five-year guarantee that the workers would receive salaries comparable to their old jobs’ in their new positions. To ensure the contractor fulfills its promise, they demanded that a fund be set up, Peng said.
Some ex-collectors said that they were being discriminated against at their new jobs and no longer want to accept the company’s job offers. They asked to be placed in different agencies, adding that if they found jobs themselves, the company should pay the salary difference for five years, which it had also promised to do.
Yeh said that the ministry can refuse to pay the company the service fee it expects, in the event that it does not keep its promise.
He said it is unlikely that the government would place the workers in government jobs, but that the bureau can list government jobs on the bureau’s Web site.
Asking the company to compensate jobs outside the company and its group would be “beyond the coverage of the contract,” Yeh said.
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