Members of the Taiwan Railway Union yesterday went on a 100-hour hunger strike at the Taipei Railway Station after the Supreme Administrative Court ruled in favor of Taiwan Railway Corp (TRC) in a case regarding a union protest in 2017.
Union members during the Lunar New Year holiday in 2017 protested to oppose overwork and demand better working conditions, during which they did not come to work. Although the protest was framed as workers exercising their right to take leave, it effectively functioned as a quasi-strike, disrupting train services nationwide.
The protest led to the TRC revising the work shift system, and increasing workers’ salaries and benefits. However, the union later filed a lawsuit against the company and the Ministry of Labor after 337 workers were marked with “unauthorized absences” for taking leave during the holiday.
Photo: CNA
The Taipei High Administrative Court ruled in favor of the union, but the Supreme Administrative Court reversed the ruling and ruled in favor of the TRC and labor ministry.
The union said the purpose of the hunger strike, which is to last until Monday, is to demonstrate that the Supreme Administrative Court’s ruling is unreasonable, adding that it is considering requesting a retrial.
“All reforms that the TRC implemented were results of the workers’ protests. The railway company has never actively addressed the workers’ demands for better working conditions,” union Secretary-General Chu Chih-yu (朱智宇) told a news conference at the Taipei Railway Station.
“The ruling from the Supreme Administrative Court not only determined the legality of he punishment for the TRC employees who joined the union’s protest, but would also affect the rights of all workers in Taiwan taking leave on national holidays,” Chu said. “The judicial remedy is not yet over. Workers that have been united in this cause will not bend their knees to the employer simply because of a court ruling.”
“The union will defend workers’ right to take leave until the end,” Chu said.
Other labor groups supporting the union’s hunger strike also vowed to unite workers’ unions across the nation for a larger protest.
The union said the core issue in the case was whether workers’ unions need to operate within the confines of company procedures during a labor dispute.
The Taipei High Administrative Court ruled in favor of the union, as the committee that determined that the TRC did not engage in unfair labor practices reached the decision without fulfilling the quorum for a meeting.
The TRC and the labor ministry appealed the ruling, and the case was retried.
The union won the retrial, with the court finding that the TRC engaged in unfair labor practices by not obtaining workers’ consent before arranging holiday work schedules and for marking them absent.
However, the Supreme Administrative Court said that the TRC’s regulations authorized the company to arrange workers’ schedules on weekdays and national holidays, so their actions did not contravene the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法).
TRC’s procedures for employees taking paid leave or leave of absence were not designed to impose unreasonable restrictions on workers, but are meant to apply consistent rules to all employees when they arrange their leave schedules, it said.
The Supreme Administrative Court said that although it acknowledged the union’s right to not settle disputes through established mechanisms, union members did not act according to the terms of their contracts and did not follow the “good faith” principle.
Therefore, TRC’s response to workers taking leave without permission did not constitute an unfair labor practice, the court said.
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