Even as the protests by 2,300 Taiwan railway employees were subsiding on Monday, the Taiwan Railway Labor Union (TRLU) was considering a large-scale strike, local media reported yesterday.
The union workers were protesting moves by the Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA,
Chang Wen-cheng (
Union officials were also reported as saying that they expect that TRA Director-General Huang Teh-chih's signing two days ago of a document putting this promise on paper is only a trick to cool things down and that sooner or later he will break the promise.
Hsu Ta-Wen (
The TRA's Reconstruction Bureau (
According to the reports, Minister of Transportation and Communication Lin Ling-san (
In other related news, residents in the Hualien area are reported to be upset that one of their Tzu-chiang class trains has been moved by the TRA to Kaohsiung, where it has been changed into a luxurious tourist train, the Kaohsiung Do-Do Train.
The Hualien City Government is reported to have submitted a complaint to the Ministry of Transportation and Communication, while the Hualien chapter of the TRLU is demanding that development of transportation in eastern Taiwan be given priority.
The TRA is reported as saying that since 20 north- and southbound Tzu-chiang class trains stop in Hualien every day, transferring one of these trains would not affect ordinary traffic.
Civil society groups yesterday protested outside the Legislative Yuan, decrying Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) efforts to pass three major bills that they said would seriously harm Taiwan’s democracy, and called to oust KMT caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁). It was the second night of the three-day “Bluebird wintertime action” protests in Taipei, with organizers announcing that 8,000 people attended. Organized by Taiwan Citizen Front, the Economic Democracy Union (EDU) and a coalition of civil groups, about 6,000 people began a demonstration in front of KMT party headquarters in Taipei on Wednesday, organizers said. For the third day, the organizers asked people to assemble
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CONNECTED: A survey of students from third grade to university seniors showed that 80% had cellphones, spending on average 37.27 hours per week on them Line users in Taiwan made an average of 100 million voice or video calls each day this year, while “like/thumbs up” was the most frequently used emoji in reaction to a message on the service, the Tokyo-based operator of the messaging app said yesterday. The app’s ability to adjust the quality of video and voice calls helps contribute to its frequent use, LY Corp said in a statement. As of Nov. 30, Line users in Taiwan spent an average of about one hour per day on the app, often checking it in the morning for messages that might have come through overnight,
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