Chunghwa Express Co employees yesterday began a nationwide strike after failing to secure a raise following two years of negotiations with the company’s management.
The first group of workers to strike were from the company’s offices in Taipei, Taoyuan, Hsinchu City and Yilan County, the Chunghwa Express Workers’ Union said.
The delivery firm, which is a subsidiary of state-run Chunghwa Post, receives most of its revenue from delivering checks and other paperwork for local financial institutions.
Photo: Chen Hsin-yu, Taipei Times
“Because of the strike, our clients must deliver the paperwork themselves,” Chunghwa Express chairman Huang Cheng-chung (黃振忠). “It has taken the company a while to gain the trust of banks and other clients, now we might lose their trust because of a trivial matter.”
Huang said he would propose giving employees a raise at an interim board meeting this month, but the board would make the final decision.
At a protest outside the Ministry of Transportation and Communications in Taipei yesterday morning, the union said Chunghwa Express should immediately give all employees a raise of NT$5,000 (US$168).
Huang accepted a petition from the union, but did not sign it.
Union members said they were angered when they saw a job advertisement offering contractors a monthly salary of NT$38,000, which is higher than employees’ pay.
When union members confronted management about the salary for contractors, they were told they were free to leave, the union said.
The company’s net profit after tax was NT$74.92 million in 2019, and giving 200 employees a raise would only increase personnel costs NT$1 million per month, the union said.
Profits generated by Chunghwa Express should not be used to feed the “fat cats,” retired management from Chunghwa Post who have stakes in the delivery firm, it said.
“The Ministry of Transportation and Communications oversees Chunghwa Post, and the ministry can influence board members from the postal firm,” the union said, adding that the ministry could promise a raise for Chunghwa Express employees.
Huang said that contractors are paid more because they need to have motorcycles and pay for gas, which costs about NT$3,000 per month.
The ministry issued a statement yesterday afternoon, saying that Chunghwa Post has been asked to ensure that its subsidiary created a fair and reasonable salary adjustment mechanism for its employees.
Entry-level workers at Chunghwa Express were given a raise of 1 to 5 percent on Oct. 1 last year, after it was ascertained that their salaries were low relative to their peers, the ministry said.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai