More than 100 former freeway toll collectors yesterday rallied in front of the Taipei apartment building where Premier Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) lives to stage a Workers’ Day protest, with a large police force already deployed at the scene to control the crowd.
According to a report by the Chinese-language Apple Daily, a group of protesters gathered near Mao’s apartment block at about 7am, but the neighborhood was already cordoned off because the police had been tipped off in advance.
Fended off by the police, shoe-wielding demonstrators shouted their demands outside the cordoned area, calling Mao “the guardian angel of business groups” and asking him to come out and face the crowd, the report said.
Photo: CNA
The police set up egg-catching nets over the front door of the building at about 7:50am, leading the protesters to believe that Mao was coming out of the building, but he left from a side door as the demonstrators congregated around the front door.
Hundreds of freeway toll collectors have been unemployed since the nation switched to an electronic toll collection system and tore down all the toll booths in January last year.
In addition to help in finding new jobs, the laid-off workers are demanding that the government provide them with severance packages according to their years of service, instead of a flat seven-month stipend.
An earlier protest outside Mao’s residence on March 16 led to violent scuffles with the police, resulting in injuries on both sides.
Mao said on March 17 that the former toll collectors had been compensated as much as the law allowed, and the government could not commit itself to any extra-legal remedies.
He added that he hoped the 200 workers who had not yet been employed could find another job.
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