Lawmakers serving on the legislature’s Transportation Committee yesterday proposed that the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) be turned into a state-run corporation, which they think would be the best way to the resolve the labor disputes facing the railway agency.
The proposal resurfaced at the committee meeting, at which the Ministry of Transportation and Communications and the TRA were scheduled to brief lawmakers on how they would resolve disputes with workers.
Train drivers and train service personnel had threatened to strike during the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday last week if the TRA did not address a series of issues caused by a personnel shortage.
TRA statistics show that it is able to hire 14,548 people under the current budget, which was down 22 percent compared with 17 years ago. Passenger numbers have increased by 30 percent compared with eight years ago, and the number of train stations has risen to 226. The number of daily passenger and cargo train services has also increased by 10 percent.
The agency has 1,315 vacant positions left by employees who retired or resigned.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-tse (李昆澤) said that 30 percent of new TRA employees leave their jobs soon after passing training tests and enter the agency, showing that the agency has difficulty retaining staff.
Grueling job requirements also discourage train drivers and railway maintenance from staying, Lee said.
“On average, train drivers drive about 43,000km per year, which is equivalent to driving around the nation 38 times. Each railway maintenance team now has only two workers, and there is no third person to watch out for approaching trains,” Lee said.
Apart from the poor work conditions, DPP Legislator Yeh Yi-jin (葉宜津) said that the railway workers also have a salary system that is different from other government workers, with a lower starting salary and fewer benefits.
She said that the best solution would be to transform the TRA into a state-run corporation.
Yeh said that Minister of Transportation and Communications Hochen Tan (賀陳旦) had proposed the idea 16 years earlier.
The idea did not materialize because the Taiwan Railway Labor Union opposed it, as it said that TRA workers would be laid off if the agency was turned into a corporation. The union should no longer reject the idea, because several ministry departments have become state-run corporations, such as Taoyuan International Airport Corp, Taiwan International Port Corp and Chunghwa Post, Yeh said.
Both the Taiwan Railway Union and Taiwan Railway Workers’ Union oppose the privatization of the railway agency.
The unions said the key is to ensure that railway workers have the same salary scale and benefits as other government employees and can have a sound and safe work environment, which is what helps retain workers.
Deputy Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) said that turning the TRA into a corporation does not mean that it has to be privatized, adding that there is still a long way to go before the agency could be privatized.
To become a corporation, the TRA would need to have sufficient workers, competitive salaries and upgraded infrastructure, Wang said.
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