The Taiwan Railway Union yesterday said that the Taipei Railway Station is short-staffed, requiring some employees to work up to 12 hours per shift.
“Long lines at the ticket windows are an ongoing problem that has led to a great number of customer complaints and constant overworking of employees,” union president Wang Chieh (王傑) told a news conference in Taipei.
“Often, we have just a half an hour, if any time at all, to eat lunch or dinner, and hardly enough time to take bathroom breaks,” said Wang, who works at the station’s customer service center.
Photo: Cheng Wei-chi, Taipei Times
The most overworked staff are those at window 12, where they are responsible for selling time-limited passes, unlocking cards and handling machine repairs, he said.
If one of the two personnel at the window takes time off, the other must work 12 hours straight to cover it, he added.
The station has 161 personnel, which is 27 fewer than it had in 2008, even though the number of passengers passing through the station has grown by 4 million over the past decade, Wang said.
In contrast, personnel at other major stations, such as Shulin (樹林), Songshan (松山), Banciao (板橋), Jhongli (中壢) and Hsinchu (新竹), have all increased or maintained about the same amount of staff since 2008, he added.
While the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) said that it would recruit 18 people next year, that would only fill the vacancies of the 18 people who left earlier this year, he said.
“To ensure that the station can function properly, it would need a total of 215 personnel,” Wang said.
The problem of long lines at the Taipei Railway Station is made worse by poorly designed signs, which are rarely helpful, he said.
Often, foreigners spend 10 to 20 minutes waiting in line before realizing that they are at the wrong window, he said.
At the news conference, New Power Party Chairman Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) also said that the TRA should hire more people to staff the station.
“It is not that the TRA does not have the money, but that it has been wasting it,” he said. “If it can spend NT$44 billion [US$1.4 billion] to buy new intercity trains [last month], why does it not have the money to hire enough people? We hope the TRA will invest its money in the right place.”
The agency said it completed a personnel review of the Taipei Railway Station on Oct. 25, adding that it promised in a meeting at Hsu’s office on Oct. 31 that 21 new recruits would begin working at the station.
Of the 21 new employees, 11 have started working as apprentices, while the other 10 would begin the apprenticeship program on Dec. 26, the agency said.
In light of the problems caused by the personnel shortage, it said that it would periodically review staffing levels at the station.
The station would adjust job assignments based on changing service demands, it added.
The Taipei Railway Station has been asked to address problems caused by inadequate signage, the agency said, adding that station crew would walk around the station more frequently to offer directions to passengers.
“We will invite experts, as well as advocates for the rights of the disabled, to inspect the station facilities and propose measures to help us improve,” the agency said.
The suggestions would be incorporated into a program designed to improve signage at the station, which would be implemented next year, it added.
Additional reporting by Shelley Shan
Travel agencies in Taiwan are working to secure alternative flights for travelers bound for New Zealand for the Lunar New Year holiday, as Air New Zealand workers are set to strike next week. The airline said that it has confirmed that the planned industrial action by its international wide-body cabin crew would go ahead on Thursday and Friday next week. While the Auckland-based carrier pledged to take reasonable measures to mitigate the impact of the workers’ strike, an Air New Zealand flight arriving at Taipei from Auckland on Thursday and another flight departing from Taipei for Auckland on Saturday would have to
The Taipei City Government yesterday confirmed that it has negotiated a royalties of NT$12.2 billion (US$380 million) with artificial intelligence (AI) chip giant Nvidia Corp, with the earliest possible signing date set for Wednesday next week. The city has been preparing for Nvidia to build its Taiwan headquarters in Beitou-Shilin Technology Park since last year, and the project has now entered its final stage before the contract is signed. Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said the city government has completed the royalty price negotiations and would now push through the remaining procedures to sign the contract before
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday said the name of the Taiwanese Representative Office in Lithuania was agreed by both sides, after Lithuania’s prime minister described a 2021 decision to let Taiwan set up a de facto embassy in Vilnius as a “mistake.” Lithuanian Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene, who entered office in September last year, told the Baltic News Service on Tuesday that Lithuania had begun taking “small first steps” aimed at restoring ties with Beijing. The ministry in a statement said that Taiwan and Lithuania are important partners that share the values of freedom and democracy. Since the establishment of the
Taipei Zoo welcomes the Lunar New Year this year through its efforts to protect an endangered species of horse native to central Asia that was once fully extinct outside of captivity. The festival ushering in the Year of the Horse would draw attention to the zoo’s four specimens of Przewalski’s horse, named for a Russian geographer who first encountered them in the late 19th century across the steppes of western Mongolia. “Visitors will look at the horses and think that since this is the Year of the Horse: ‘I want to get to know horses,’” said zookeeper Chen Yun-chieh, who has been
RSS