The Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) should distribute nearly NT$30 million (US$1.02 million) in overtime pay it owes its workers, cancel a new work schedule set to be implemented next year and start negotiations with the Taiwan Railway Union, the union demanded yesterday morning as it launched a protest in front of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications in Taipei.
TRA workers have yet to receive overtime pay they are due for May and June, due to a budget shortfall, the union said.
“Employees are supposed to receive their salaries for the previous month on the 25th of each month. However, when checking the receipts of our salaries in June and last month, train dispatchers and conductors did not see the overtime pay that was supposed to be in their accounts,” the union said.
Photo: Cheng Wei-chi, Taipei Times
TRA Transportation Department employees have received an official letter saying that it would implement a new work schedule next year, which the union said would reduce their pay.
The agency organized the new schedule without adequate communication with its employees, and it plans to suspend overtime pay and force workers to accept its new schedule, the union said.
Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said that the ministry would facilitate negotiations between the agency and the union, and expedite the distribution of overtime pay for TRA workers.
“The agency has in recent years recruited 4,000 new workers. We want to make sure that the workload of frontline employees can be eased, and they are paid accordingly. At the beginning of this year, we secured the legal right to distribute employees’ benefits, which include overtime pay,” Lin said.
However, the TRA said that it has submitted an analysis of the additional funding needed for overtime pay to the ministry.
The Taiwan Railway Labor Union, which is also affiliated with the agency, said that it would help the TRA communicate with ministry officials.
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