The May 1 Action Alliance on Monday announced that an appeal for a referendum on workers’ rights and wage increases are to be the focus of the Workers’ Day march in Taipei on Tuesday next week.
The annual march is to begin on Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the Presidential Office Building and proceed to the Legislative Yuan a few blocks away, said the alliance, which is comprised of trade unions.
The focus of this year’s event is to be “opposition to overwork and demanding a referendum on higher wages and workers’ rights,” it said.
The alliance opposes this year’s revisions to the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法), which it has criticized as “backsliding” on workers’ rights.
The alliance is proposing holding a referendum so the “vicious revisions” can be overturned.
Labor Rights Referendum Alliance member Hsieh Yi-hung (謝毅弘) said efforts are being made to solicit endorsement of the proposed referendum, which would also call for a new law that regulates national holidays and returns the seven holidays that were canceled as part of the amended law.
The alliance hopes that 300,000 signatures backing the referendum can be collected before the end of August so that the referendum can be held at the same time as the nine-in-one local elections on Nov. 24, Hsieh said.
Calling for the monthly minimum wage to be raised from NT$22,000 to NT$28,000 over the next three years, Taiwan Higher Education Union researcher Chen Po-chien (陳柏謙) said that the nation experienced accumulated economic growth of more than 20 percent from 2007 to 2016.
During that period, the consumer price index rose 9.1 percent, but the earnings of private-sector workers only grew 8.3 percent.
“Taiwanese workers should be given a 10 percent wage increase every year over the next three years,” Chen said. “This is no more than a basic requirement.”
Taiwan is stepping up plans to create self-sufficient supply chains for combat drones and increase foreign orders from the US to counter China’s numerical superiority, a defense official said on Saturday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said the nation’s armed forces are in agreement with US Admiral Samuel Paparo’s assessment that Taiwan’s military must be prepared to turn the nation’s waters into a “hellscape” for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Paparo, the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, reiterated the concept during a Congressional hearing in Washington on Wednesday. He first coined the term in a security conference last
A magnitude 4.3 earthquake struck eastern Taiwan's Hualien County at 8:31am today, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). The epicenter of the temblor was located in Hualien County, about 70.3 kilometers south southwest of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 23.2km, according to the administration. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County, where it measured 3 on Taiwan's 7-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 2 in Hualien and Nantou counties, the CWA said.
The Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC) yesterday announced a fundraising campaign to support survivors of the magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Myanmar on March 28, with two prayer events scheduled in Taipei and Taichung later this week. “While initial rescue operations have concluded [in Myanmar], many survivors are now facing increasingly difficult living conditions,” OCAC Minister Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青) told a news conference in Taipei. The fundraising campaign, which runs through May 31, is focused on supporting the reconstruction of damaged overseas compatriot schools, assisting students from Myanmar in Taiwan, and providing essential items, such as drinking water, food and medical supplies,
New Party Deputy Secretary-General You Chih-pin (游智彬) this morning went to the National Immigration Agency (NIA) to “turn himself in” after being notified that he had failed to provide proof of having renounced his Chinese household registration. He was one of more than 10,000 naturalized Taiwanese citizens from China who were informed by the NIA that their Taiwanese citizenship might be revoked if they fail to provide the proof in three months, people familiar with the matter said. You said he has proof that he had renounced his Chinese household registration and demanded the NIA provide proof that he still had Chinese
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