Some Chunghwa Post couriers have complained that the company has not provided them with an adequate supply of masks, even though the company is in charge of delivering masks and alcohol to National Health Insurance Administration partnered pharmacies nationwide to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
One delivery person on Wednesday posted an article on the couriers’ Facebook page saying that employees in a hardwood company in Taichung had been asked to home quarantine themselves after one employee was said to be a family member of the nation’s first COVID-19 fatality.
“Did the company not promise to provide couriers with 16,000 face masks daily?” the person wrote.
“Couriers are likely to deliver mail or packages to people who are under home quarantine, which they would not know. Chunghwa Post is not providing each courier with a face mask daily, at least that is the case with me,” they wrote.
“Who is going to be responsible if a courier contracts the disease when delivering registered mail,” they wrote.
“Would the government have to shut down the postal company if one of the couriers is confirmed with COVID-19, just as the hardwood company was? Should the residents serviced by this courier undergo home quarantine as well? Who is going to deliver the mail after Chunghwa Post is closed?” the courier added.
The complaints have drawn attention from the company and a union, as well as other couriers.
China Postal Workers’ Union chairman Wu Wen-feng (吳文豐) said that Chunghwa Post has about 26,000 employees, including 20,000 couriers and post office clerks who need to interact with customers.
Following a request from the union, Chunghwa Post has increased the number of masks provided to couriers and other service staff from 6,000 per day to 10,000, but this is still not enough to meet demand, Wu said.
The government should inform Chunghwa Post of the people who are under home quarantine so couriers can be aware, he said.
Chunghwa Post said clerks at post offices near or inside hospitals, and train or bus stations, as well as those working in branches with high foot traffic, are being given priority for masks.
However, couriers delivering mail or packages to hospitals, medical clinics, pharmacies, train and bus stations and densely populated areas would be given masks first, it said.
Employees of post offices in remote and less-populated areas would be given masks based on actual demand on a weekly basis, the company said.
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