The Taiwan Railway Union yesterday announced that its members would not collectively take a leave of absence during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday after Taiwan Railway Corp (TRC) agreed to raise the allowance for train conductors.
The union made the decision during its board meeting yesterday morning.
“The number of train conductors and railway station staff members who are scheduled to participate in the move might not be higher than those who participated in a similar action in 2017, but the number would be large enough to disrupt railway transportation during the Lunar New Year holiday,” the union wrote on Facebook.
Photo: Cheng Wei-chi, Taipei Times
“In light of the public’s growing distrust in the reliability of the public transport system following the labor dispute between EVA Airways and its pilots, we feel that trust would be further damaged should we launch any collective action at this moment,” the union said.
“We have also reached an agreement with Taiwan Railway Corp about raising the allowances for train conductors. After taking all factors into consideration, we have decided to suspend the plan to collectively take the Lunar New Year holiday off,” it said.
Union chairman Wang Chieh (王傑) struck a slightly different tone, saying that the union simply had to suspend the action because not enough union members were planning to take part in the action.
“As an organizer, I feel I am responsible for it,” he wrote on Facebook.
Although the union has suspended the action, it warned the Ministry of Transportation and Communications and TRC that it could move again if they continue to ignore the plight of TRC employees.
“Like EVA, TRC is also part of the transportation sector, but we have been underpaid and constantly face staffing shortages. As TRC’s largest shareholder, the transportation ministry has both the authority and the ability to address these situations. Instead, the ministry was busy handling disputes involving highly paid labor and simply ignored the plight of low-paid workers,” the union said.
Separately, Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) yesterday said that the nation’s largest railway service provider would not have any problem transporting homebound passengers during the holiday.
“The TRC has two workers’ unions: Taiwan Railway Labor Union and Taiwan Railway Union. The former, which has a majority of TRC employees as members, does not support such action and was trying to dissuade the latter from doing so,” he said on the sidelines of an event in Taipei.
As for EVA, Wang kwo-tsai said that the Executive Yuan’s intervention and public pressure played a significant role in stopping EVA pilots from going on strike.
“By Saturday, the airline had received an average of 5,000 requests for ticket refunds per day since [the pilots] secured the right to strike. Vice Premier Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) had experience in helping resolve disputes involving employees of China Airlines and EVA when he was the Taoyuan mayor. He canceled many of his trips on weekends to preside over the negotiations between EVA and its pilots,” he said.
“Both sides eventually decided to make some concessions after considering the damage the strike could do to the airline’s reputation, as well as complaints from holiday travelers,” he added.
Although travel agencies have urged the government to propose a change in regulations that would require airline workers to give a one-month notice for strike, the Ministry of Labor is not inclined to changing the regulations, he said.
“We support an amendment of relevant regulations that would make prestrike notices necessary, but labor rights groups argued that such a change would further weaken workers’ rights, and that the public was already alerted about a possible strike when the union announced a vote on it,” he added.
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