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
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