Unions and labor rights activists yesterday staged a protest outside the Shanghai Commercial & Savings Bank (SCSB, 上海商業儲蓄銀行) headquarters in Taipei, accusing the bank of repressing union members, and urging it to allow a fired former union member to return to work.
Members from several bank unions and the Taiwan Labor Front (TLF) yesterday also voiced their support for former senior SCSB employee and union leader Cheng Chun-chih (陳軍智), who was twice dismissed by the bank.
Their protest came in following several readjustments in the bank’s position on labor disputes, which the Taipei City Department of Labor confirmed as employment discrimination and the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) confirmed as repression of union activities.
“Since the founding of the SCSB Union in 2010, the company’s management has repeatedly harassed union members — including Chen — through one-on-one talks with union members and job readjustments,” TLF representative Chang Feng-yi (張烽益) said during the protest.
The Taipei City Department of Labor previously imposed a fine of NT$1 million (US$33,800) on the bank for its discriminatory actions regarding Chen and other union members.
However, the bank still fired Chen last year and would not let him return to work despite a CLA ruling that confirmed the bank’s moves as repression of union activities.
“The ban is simply ruthless,” Chen said.
“One of the problems with labor laws is that the most severe penalty a company that represses union activities can get is a fine, but they don’t care about these fines, and sometimes even pay the fine from the budget that has been designated to be used for employee welfare,” he added.
In a written statement, SCSB denied that Chen was fired as a result of his union activities., adding that was he dismissed because of excessive absence from work.
As to Chen’s request to return to work, the bank said that his case is now being reviewed by the court, and the bank will decide whether to allow him to return to work based on the court ruling.
SPEED OF LIGHT: US lawmakers urged the commerce department to examine the national security threats from China’s development of silicon photonics technology US President Joe Biden’s administration on Monday said it is finalizing rules that would limit US investments in artificial intelligence (AI) and other technology sectors in China that could threaten US national security. The rules, which were proposed in June by the US Department of the Treasury, were directed by an executive order signed by Biden in August last year covering three key sectors: semiconductors and microelectronics, quantum information technologies and certain AI systems. The rules are to take effect on Jan. 2 next year and would be overseen by the Treasury’s newly created Office of Global Transactions. The Treasury said the “narrow
SPECULATION: The central bank cut the loan-to-value ratio for mortgages on second homes by 10 percent and denied grace periods to prevent a real-estate bubble The central bank’s board members in September agreed to tighten lending terms to induce a soft landing in the housing market, although some raised doubts that they would achieve the intended effect, the meeting’s minutes released yesterday showed. The central bank on Sept. 18 introduced harsher loan restrictions for mortgages across Taiwan in the hope of curbing housing speculation and hoarding that could create a bubble and threaten the financial system’s stability. Toward the aim, it cut the loan-to-value ratio by 10 percent for second and subsequent home mortgages and denied grace periods for first mortgages if applicants already owned other residential
EXPORT CONTROLS: US lawmakers have grown more concerned that the US Department of Commerce might not be aggressively enforcing its chip restrictions The US on Friday said it imposed a US$500,000 penalty on New York-based GlobalFoundries Inc, the world’s third-largest contract chipmaker, for shipping chips without authorization to an affiliate of blacklisted Chinese chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯). The US Department of Commerce in a statement said GlobalFoundries sent 74 shipments worth US$17.1 million to SJ Semiconductor Corp (盛合晶微半導體), an affiliate of SMIC, without seeking a license. Both SMIC and SJ Semiconductor were added to the department’s trade restriction Entity List in 2020 over SMIC’s alleged ties to the Chinese military-industrial complex. SMIC has denied wrongdoing. Exports to firms on the list
TECHNOLOGY EXIT: The selling of Apple stock might be related to the death of Berkshire vice chairman Charlie Munger last year, an analyst said Billionaire Warren Buffett is now sitting on more than US$325 billion in cash after continuing to unload billions of US dollars worth of Apple Inc and Bank of America Corp shares this year and continuing to collect a steady stream of profits from all of Berkshire Hathaway Inc’s assorted businesses without finding any major acquisitions. Berkshire on Saturday said it sold off about 100 million more Apple shares in the third quarter after halving its massive investment in the iPhone maker the previous quarter. The remaining stake of about 300 million shares was valued at US$69.9 billion at the end of
RSS