The Executive Yuan yesterday proposed an amendment to the Civil Servant Association Act (公務人員協會法) to safeguard firefighters’ rights, after a blaze and subsequent explosions at Launch Technologies Co’s plant at Pingtung Technology Industrial Park on Friday last week killed four firefighters and five civilians, and injured more than 100 people.
The Cabinet made the statement in response to the call from the National Association for Firefighters’ Rights and other civic groups to allow firefighters to form unions.
They reiterated their appeal at a protest at the Executive Yuan yesterday morning and demanded to have their voices heard in the Cabinet meeting.
Photo courtesy of the Changhua County Fire Bureau
Association member Huang Sheng (黃升) said the Executive Yuan’s proposed amendment to the act did not consider input from firefighters, nor can it protect their rights to form a union, engage in collective bargaining and dispute labor practices.
They should be allowed to form a union based on the Labor Union Act (工會法), Huang said.
Association secretary-general Chen Yen-kai (陳彥凱) said that the government should amend the Fire Services Act (消防法) to impose punishments on factory managers whose failure to assist in fire rescue operations have led to the death and injuries of firefighters.
“An amendment to the Toxic and Concerned Chemical Substance Act (毒性及關注化學物質管理法) should also be proposed so that criminal punishment can be issued to business owners who fail to manufacture and store chemical substances based on regulations,” Chen said.
“The Executive Yuan should also propose an amendment to the Public Servants’ Safety and Health Protection Act (公務人員安全及衛生防護辦法) to protect the safety of firefighters,” Chen said.
Cabinet spokesman Lin Tzu-luen (林子倫) said that firefighters are civil servants, and changes to the system should be discussed based on how they carry out their duties.
The fastest way to reinforce their rights to form a workers’ organization and engage in collective bargaining is to propose an amendment to the Civil Servant Association Act, Lin said.
“Considering the danger and urgency of firefighters’ work and uncertainty of disaster zones, we think the most appropriate thing to do is to amend the Fire Services Act,” he said, adding that an occupational safety and health mechanism for firefighters would be established to protect firefighters.
“We have reached a consensus with the Examination Yuan to complete the amendment to the Civil Servant Association Act in one month and to have the amendment deliberated at the Legislative Yuan,” Lin said.
STRONG RELATIONSHIPS: China would not blockade Taiwan, because President Xi respects him, and Russia would not have invaded if he were president, he said Former US president and the Republican candidate in next month’s presidential election Donald Trump said he would impose additional tariffs on China if China were to “go into Taiwan,” the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported. “I would say: If you go into Taiwan, I’m sorry to do this, I’m going to tax you, at 150 percent to 200 percent,” Trump was quoted as saying in an interview with the WSJ published on Friday. Asked if he would use military force against a blockade on Taiwan by China, Trump said it would not come to that because Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) respected
The Taipei Department of Transportation discouraged YouBike 2.0E users from taking them on long-distance trips after a Taipei city councilor said that riders often use the new electric bike, YouBike 2.0E, to climb Yangmingshan (陽明山). Taipei earlier this year began offering the first 30 minutes of YouBike 2.0 rentals for free, with Taipei and New Taipei offering the YouBike 2.0E on Aug. 30 to encourage rider usage. For YouBike 2.0, the rate is NT$10 per 30 minutes within the first four hours, NT$20 per 30 minutes for five to eight hours and NT$40 per 30 minutes after eight hours. Meanwhile, for e-bikes,
RESOURCE RICH: Taiwan is located in the Pacific Ring of Fire and has up to 30 gigawatts of the potential energy, of which 10 gigawatts could be economically viable Academia Sinica and CPC Corp yesterday began drilling the nation’s first deep geothermal well in Yilan County’s Yuanshan Township (員山). The 4km-deep well is expected to take 18 months to complete and has an estimated investment of NT$337 million (US$10.54 million), Academia Sinica President James Liao (廖俊智) said. “While Taiwan has up to 30 gigawatts of potential deep geothermal energy, with an estimated 10 gigawatts being economically viable, only by digging wells can we determine the actual amount of commercially viable geothermal energy,” Liao said at the project’s opening ceremony. Data collected during and after the excavation process would be used for future
HACKERS’ MARKET: Chat logs about Taiwan and documents outlining ways to take over online accounts were leaked from a company that sells data from hacks Taiwanese cybersecurity specialists found 577 leaked documents which show that the Chinese Communist Party is engaging in “cognitive warfare” against Taiwan through cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns, a documentary released last month by Japanese public broadcaster NHK showed. The filmmakers behind Tracking China’s Leaked Documents said they spent six months visiting seven countries, including Taiwan, where they interviewed members of TeamT5, a malware research and cybersecurity firm, which found the leaked documents. TeamT5 said they discovered a string of mysterious URLs on the social media platform X, which they suspected could be accounts created by hackers or people who leaked data, which led