Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kuo-tsai (王國材) yesterday pledged to continue communicating with members of the Taiwan Railway Labor Union (TRLU) over 16 regulations in the draft Taiwan railway corporation act, after the union on Wednesday canceled a strike planned for the Dragon Boat Festival on Friday next week.
“I thank the union for the decision reached on Wednesday following a rational discussion, which was a good start,” Wang told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee in Taipei. “We can now focus on discussions about the regulations with union members. I hope that there will not be strikes on long weekends anymore.”
The draft act is expected to be passed at a third reading in the legislature on Tuesday next week following a one-month negotiation between Democratic Progressive Party and opposition lawmakers.
Photo: Cheng Wei-chi, Taipei Times
The Executive Yuan and the ministry have responded to major issues highlighted by the TRLU in good faith, including enhancing railway safety, resolving issues caused by the Taiwan Railways Administration’s (TRA) accumulated debt, a more flexible use of the agency’s assets, and adjusting employee salaries and benefits, the TRLU said.
“Union members had different opinions about the strike during the meeting on Wednesday, but I told them that not too many people want to take trains with COVID-19 cases soaring nationwide,” TRLU chairman Chen Shih-chieh (陳世杰) said.
“Should we insist on taking June 3 off, it would hurt the union, the TRA and train passengers. In the end, members unanimously agreed to cancel the strike,” he said.
Although the union canceled the strike, the TRA said that it has no plans to offer more train services during the holiday as the number of passengers is expected to decline amid a domestic COVID-19 outbreak.
Except for four “homebound” services chartered by the Hualien and Taitung county governments, the schedule during the holiday would not differ much from that on a regular weekend, the TRA said.
An average of 17.22 percent of tickets for services between Thursday next week and June 6 have been booked, TRA data showed.
The number of passengers on the west coast is expected to fall to an average of 250,000 per day during the three-day holiday, down from 618,000 per day last year.
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