Members of the Chunghwa Express Union yesterday held a protest in front of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications building, saying that the express delivery firm has not adjusted workers’ salaries for 17 years.
The express delivery firm is a subsidiary of state-run Chunghwa Post, which owns about 50 percent of its shares, with the other half held by private investors.
The protesters said they would not rule out going on strike at the end of this month if Chunghwa Express’ board refuses to approve a raise.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
They also asked that union representatives be allowed to attend a board meeting that is to be held at the end of this month to discuss the pay raise proposal with board directors and supervisors.
Chunghwa Express’ financial statements showed that its net profit rose from NT$63 million (US$2.27 million at the current exchange rate) in 2017 to NT$75 million in 2019, the union said, adding that workers’ contributions to this impressive performance should not be ignored.
Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics figures showed that the consumer price index rose from 86.3 in 2005 to 104.92 last month, the union said, adding that workers can no longer keep up with the rising cost of living.
Last year, the average monthly salary for workers in the transportation and warehousing industry was NT$55,097, it said, citing data from the ministry.
Meanwhile, the basic monthly salary for an entry-level Chunghwa Express employee was less than NT$25,000, the union said.
Adding full-attendance bonuses and overtime pay would only raise that figure to NT$26,000 a month, it said.
“How can a worker survive and raise a family with such a low salary?” the union asked.
Union members early this year voted to go on strike if management continues to disregard their requests for a wage hike.
Chunghwa Post holds a significant stake in Chunghwa Express and should quickly establish a salary-adjustment mechanism to retain experienced workers and maintain service quality, the union said.
“We are asking for a 5 percent raise for the company’s 200 ground-level workers. Such an adjustment would only lead to an annual increase in personnel costs of NT$3 million, which a company earning NT$75 million per year can easily absorb,” it said.
While the express delivery firm has argued that it added a meal subsidy of about NT$1,200 to NT$1,700 per month to workers’ salaries in 2015, the union said it was an incentive and should not be confused with a pay raise.
“We were told that all board directors and supervisors appointed by Chunghwa Post supported the union’s pay raise plan, but that its private investors opposed it,” the union said.
“We hope that private investors can understand the struggle that workers have been through over the years and approve the proposal at the upcoming board meeting,” it said.
“Board directors and supervisors appointed by the postal firm should actively persuade private investors to give workers a raise, rather than passing the buck,” the union said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods