KMT Legislator Lee Yen-hsiu (李彥秀) yesterday slammed the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) for exploitative labor practices, after train conductor Chang Ming-yuan (張銘元) on Saturday last week allegedly died due to overwork.
She made the remarks during a review of the Ministry of Labor’s budget by the Legislative Yuan’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee.
The TRA later in the day released a statement and a copy of Chang’s duty roster for the month, which showed that he worked an average of six hours and 40 minutes per day and took regular days off.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
While the national railways’ shift arrangements are legal, they do not appear reasonable, Minister of Labor Lin Mei-chu (林美珠) said, adding that the Executive Yuan is working to increase the TRA’s staff, but the efforts would need time to bear fruit.
Last year, when lawmakers were discussing the amendments to the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法), the TRA publicly opposed legal requirements that workers be given at least 11 hours of rest between work rotations, Lee said.
“If the government is leading the charge, making bad changes to the Labor Standards Act and allowing the TRA to boss its employees around, how can we expect the private sector to arrange fair shift schedules?” Lee asked.
The labor ministry’s Institute of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health has been absent from the ongoing deliberations on labor law amendments, she said, adding that it should have been an important reference for policymaking.
Lee proposed freezing about one-third of the institute’s NT$22 million (US$734,803) budget for research on “work balance and friendly occupational environment” and “labor and employer relations and labor conditions,” in addition to a separate NT$2 million cut.
Lin said the labor ministry had reviewed railways’ duty roster and found that while it met legal requirements, it is still unreasonable to TRA employees.
After the ministry discussed the issue with the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, the Cabinet ordered the TRA to increase its staff to reduce the burden on individual employees, Lin said.
However, newly hired railway employees need to pass tests and complete training, slowing down the pace of improvement in the railways’ work conditions, she said.
KMT Legislator, Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安), the committee’s convener this week, ruled that ministry officials must resolve their differences with Lee and other lawmakers before the budget review can move forward.
Additional reporting by CNA
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