New Power Party (NPP) legislators yesterday apologized to their supporters for failing to block the Cabinet’s efforts to “undermine” the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法), while announcing that they would withdraw from the plenary session to review the proposed amendments, which are expected to be approved today.
At a news conference outside the legislative chamber, the five NPP lawmakers bowed as they apologized for failing their supporters.
“The cross-caucus negotiations ended this morning. Once again, the NPP saw officials use pretty words to cover up their determination to do as they please and hurt workers’ rights,” Huang said.
“The NPP cannot endorse this grotesque process that is undermining the Labor Standards Act,” NPP Executive Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said, adding that if the party attended the plenary session, it would be re-enacting the scene in which the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus voted to cancel seven national holidays after pushing through the “one fixed day off, one flexible rest day” policy in Dec. 2016.
Not only has President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) been unable to enforce the five-day workweek across the board, she is ready to abandon the bare minimum of “one day off every seven days” and cause some workers to work for 12 consecutive days, he said.
He said he wishes the NPP had other options to stop the amendments, but the five NPP members had done all that they could.
The DPP deceived workers the first time when it canceled seven national holidays, and it is about to fool them again by scrapping the “one day off every seven days” policy, NPP Legislator Hung Tzu-yung (洪慈庸) said.
The DPP has lost workers’ trust, she said, accusing the Executive Yuan of being adamant in pushing through its draft amendments to the point that it was reluctant to change even one word.
Meanwhile, inside the chamber, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers tied white ribbons around their heads to “mourn the death of labor rights” at a second reading for the draft amendments.
Tensions escalated when Deputy Legislative Speaker Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) announced that since the DPP caucus was the first to file extempore motions regarding the amendments, its motions would be read and voted on first, and no other motions would be voted on if a motion secures a majority vote.
As the DPP caucus has the majority, the announcement effectively threw out all motions filed by the KMT caucus, drawing protests from KMT lawmakers.
However, the announcement conformed with legislative procedure used while reviewing other bills, Tsai Chi-chang told KMT legislators.
DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said that considering the number of lawmakers that signed up to speak about the proposed amendments, each article would take about three hours to discuss, meaning that the amendments could not be passed until today.
“We hope the NPP had not staged a hunger strike for show,” Taiwan Higher Education Union researcher Chen Po-chien said at a protest outside the legislature, adding that being lawmakers, they should be in the legislature fighting for workers’ rights, not walking out and giving up.
Additional reporting by Chiu Yan-ling
Thirty-five earthquakes have exceeded 5.5 on the Richter scale so far this year, the most in 14 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said on Facebook on Thursday. A large earthquake in Hualien County on April 3 released five times as much the energy as the 921 Earthquake on Sept. 21, 1999, the agency said in its latest earthquake report for this year. Hualien County has had the most national earthquake alerts so far this year at 64, with Yilan County second with 23 and Changhua County third with nine, the agency said. The April 3 earthquake was what caused the increase in
INTIMIDATION: In addition to the likely military drills near Taiwan, China has also been waging a disinformation campaign to sow division between Taiwan and the US Beijing is poised to encircle Taiwan proper in military exercise “Joint Sword-2024C,” starting today or tomorrow, as President William Lai (賴清德) returns from his visit to diplomatic allies in the Pacific, a national security official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said that multiple intelligence sources showed that China is “highly likely” to launch new drills around Taiwan. Although the drills’ scale is unknown, there is little doubt that they are part of the military activities China initiated before Lai’s departure, they said. Beijing at the same time is conducting information warfare by fanning skepticism of the US and
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is unlikely to attempt an invasion of Taiwan during US president-elect Donald Trump’s time in office, Taiwanese and foreign academics said on Friday. Trump is set to begin his second term early next year. Xi’s ambition to establish China as a “true world power” has intensified over the years, but he would not initiate an invasion of Taiwan “in the near future,” as his top priority is to maintain the regime and his power, not unification, Tokyo Woman’s Christian University distinguished visiting professor and contemporary Chinese politics expert Akio Takahara said. Takahara made the comment at a
DEFENSE: This month’s shipment of 38 modern M1A2T tanks would begin to replace the US-made M60A3 and indigenous CM11 tanks, whose designs date to the 1980s The M1A2T tanks that Taiwan expects to take delivery of later this month are to spark a “qualitative leap” in the operational capabilities of the nation’s armored forces, a retired general told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) in an interview published yesterday. On Tuesday, the army in a statement said it anticipates receiving the first batch of 38 M1A2T Abrams main battle tanks from the US, out of 108 tanks ordered, in the coming weeks. The M1 Abrams main battle tank is a generation ahead of the Taiwanese army’s US-made M60A3 and indigenously developed CM11 tanks, which have
RSS