Ground staff at Kaohsiung International Airport yesterday scrapped a plan to go on strike during the Lunar New Year holiday, saying that they would resume talks with the airport services company’s management after the holiday.
On Thursday, the labor union of Taiwan Airport Service Co (TASC, 台灣航勤) threatened industrial action during the holiday period, after the latest round of labor-and-management negotiations over a 5 percent pay raise broke down.
TASC provides freight, aircraft cabin, passenger, ramp and equipment maintenance services at Kaohsiung and other airports.
PARALYZE
A strike by the company’s labor union would seriously paralyze ground services at Kaohsiung airport during the holiday period, which begins today and runs for nine days.
TASC said that the union’s insistence on a 5 percent pay raise was the major factor that led to the failure of the talks.
The company had said that in case of a strike, it would send additional workers to Kaohsiung to help minimize the possible impact on the airport’s ground services.
NEGOTIATIONS
At the invitation of the Kaohsiung City Government’s Labor Bureau, Cheng Ying-sheng (鄭盈昇), head of the TASC Kaohsiung branch trade union, held a new round of labor-management negotiations yesterday with his counterpart, TASC president Chen Kang-rui (陳康瑞).
After the negotiations, Cheng met with union members and later announced that the union wanted to hold another round of negotiations with management after the Lunar New Year holiday.
While deciding not to go on strike during the holiday, Cheng said the union still hoped the company would agree to a pay rise of between 3.2 percent and 5 percent for ground staff.
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