In an effort to force the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to answer to the needs of its employees, the party's union said yesterday that it is considering a mass strike on July 16 -- the day of the KMT's highly anticipated chairmanship election.
"We are sincere in our desire to talk to the party. However, we must defend our labor rights," Liu Chien-sung (
In a telephone interview with the Taipei Times, Liu said that the main reason for the proposed strike is concern that the party has not allocated any money from the controversial sale of its assets to its employee pension plans.
This is a major concern of the party's employees, Liu said, given that the KMT's top decision-making body, the Central Standing Committee, approved a proposal in early March to layoff around 1,100 of the 1,700 employees over the next two years.
"We have given our youth, our lives to the party. They cannot pass this career-destroying resolution and not do anything to take care of things," Liu said.
There are around 500 to 600 employees who are of retirement age, Liu said. If a typical pension plan can be valued at around NT$400,000, then the KMT must be prepared to pay at least NT$200 million in the near future for that group of employees.
However, the union has yet to see the party take any action to prepare such funds, Liu said.
"Everyone from KMT Secretary-General Lin Feng-chen (
He said the union is afraid that the party's current leadership will get away with doing nothing until the end.
"A strike is measure of last resort. But we cannot allow [KMT Chairman] Lien Chan (連戰) and the current leadership get away without resolving this issue." Liu said. " So we might strike on the day of the chairmanship election to prevent him [Lien]from running away."
Liu said the union will have an executive meeting on May 17 to decide whether or not to strike.
In response, KMT spokesman Chang Jung-kung (張榮恭) said yesterday that he did not believe that such a strike would have an impact on the chairmanship election.
"I think that the majority of the party's employees will not be affected by the strike, so that the chairmanship election will go on as scheduled," he said.
DEATH THREAT: A MAC official said that it has urged Beijing to avoid creating barriers that would impede exchanges across the Strait, but it continues to do so People should avoid unnecessary travel to China after Beijing issued 22 guidelines allowing its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death “Taiwan independence separatists,” the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday as it raised its travel alert for China, including Hong Kong and Macau, to “orange.” The guidelines published last week “severely threaten the personal safety of Taiwanese traveling to China, Hong Kong and Macau,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) told a news conference in Taipei. “Following a comprehensive assessment, the government considers it necessary to elevate the travel alert to orange from yellow,” Liang said. Beijing has
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday said that the Chinese Communist Party was planning and implementing “major” reforms, ahead of a political conclave that is expected to put economic recovery high on the agenda. Chinese policymakers have struggled to reignite growth since late 2022, when restrictions put in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic were lifted. The world’s second-largest economy is beset by a debt crisis in the property sector, persistently low consumption and high unemployment among young people. Policymakers “are planning and implementing major measures to further deepen reform in a comprehensive manner,” Xi said in a speech at the Great Hall
CIVIL DEFENSE: More reservists in alternative service would help establish a sound civil defense system for use in wartime and during natural disasters, Kuma Academy’s CEO said While a total of 120,000 reservists are expected to be called up for alternative reserve drills this year, compared with the 6,505 drilled last year, the number has been revised to 58,000 due to a postponed training date, Deputy Minster of the Interior Ma Shih-yuan (馬士元) said. In principle, the ministry still aims to call up 120,000 reservists for alternative reserve drills next year, he said, but the actual number would not be decided later until after this year’s evaluation. The increase follows a Legislative Yuan request that the Ministry of the Interior address low recruitment rates, which it made while reviewing
SOLUTIONS NEEDED: Taiwan must attract about 400,000 to 500,000 skilled foreign workers due to population decline, the minister of economic affairs said in Washington President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration is considering a plan to import labor to deal with an impending shortage of engineers and other highly skilled workers, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said in Washington on Tuesday. Kuo was leading a delegation attending the SelectUSA Investment Summit. Taiwan must attract about 400,000 to 500,000 skilled foreign workers for high-end manufacturing jobs by 2040, he said. Ministry of Economic Affairs officials are still calculating the precise number of workers that are needed, as it works on loosening immigration restrictions and creating incentives, Kuo said. Taiwanese firms operating factories in the US and other countries would