About 50 drivers from Taichung-based SF E-bus (四方電巴) yesterday went on strike after the company failed to pay their salaries as scheduled for a third time, halting 470 services on 13 routes, the Taichung Transportation Bureau said.
The city government mobilized drivers from four other bus companies to fill the gap in labor, Taichung Transportation Bureau Director-General Yeh Chao-fu (葉昭甫) said, adding that it also fined the bus operator NT$2.35 million (US$72,767) and NT$90,000 for breaching its operating contract with the city government and the Highway Act (公路法).
Meanwhile, the drivers went to the city government yesterday to apply for labor dispute mediation, complaining that the latest incident is the third time this year the company had failed to pay their salaries on time.
Photo: Su Chin-feng, Taipei Times
SF E-bus first started reporting pay delays last month, a representative of the bus drivers told the Central News Agency, adding that the company failed to pay them again on Friday last week and did not provide an explanation.
While SF E-bus later guaranteed that salary payments would be made no later than Sunday after it receives a subsidy from the government, the representative said the vast majority of drivers refused to “cooperate again,” demanding that their salaries be paid immediately and the termination of their contracts with the company.
In response, the Taichung Labor Affairs Bureau said that it fined SF E-bus NT$40,000 on Wednesday last week after its employees filed complaints about the pay delay last month, adding that it plans to hold a dispute settlement meeting between the management and the drivers.
Yeh also called for the intervention of SF E-bus’ parent company, Tang Eng Iron Works Corp (唐榮), which is 11 percent owned by the central government.
TECH BOOST: New TSMC wafer fabs in Arizona are to dramatically improve US advanced chip production, a report by market research firm TrendForce said With Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) pouring large funds into Arizona, the US is expected to see an improvement in its status to become the second-largest maker of advanced semiconductors in 2027, Taipei-based market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said in a report last week. TrendForce estimates the US would account for a 21 percent share in the global advanced integrated circuit (IC) production market by 2027, sharply up from the current 9 percent, as TSMC is investing US$65 billion to build three wafer fabs in Arizona, the report said. TrendForce defined the advanced chipmaking processes as the 7-nanometer process or more
China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) plans to start mass-producing its most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip in the first quarter of next year, even as it struggles to make enough chips due to US restrictions, two people familiar with the matter said. The telecoms conglomerate has sent samples of the Ascend 910C — its newest chip, meant to rival those made by US chipmaker Nvidia Corp — to some technology firms and started taking orders, the sources told Reuters. The 910C is being made by top Chinese contract chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) on its N+2 process, but a lack
Who would not want a social media audience that grows without new content? During the three years she paused production of her short do-it-yourself (DIY) farmer’s lifestyle videos, Chinese vlogger Li Ziqi (李子柒), 34, has seen her YouTube subscribers increase to 20.2 million from about 14 million. While YouTube is banned in China, her fan base there — although not the size of YouTube’s MrBeast, who has 330 million subscribers — is close to 100 million across the country’s social media platforms Douyin (抖音), Sina Weibo (新浪微博) and Xiaohongshu (小紅書). When Li finally released new videos last week — ending what has
OPEN SCIENCE: International collaboration on math and science will persevere even if the incoming Trump administration imposes strict controls, Nvidia’s CEO said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said on Saturday that global cooperation in technology would continue even if the incoming US administration imposes stricter export controls on advanced computing products. US president-elect Donald Trump, in his first term in office, imposed restrictions on the sale of US technology to China citing national security — a policy continued under US President Joe Biden. The curbs forced Nvidia, the world’s leading maker of chips used for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, to change its product lineup in China. The US chipmaking giant last week reported record-high quarterly revenue on the back of strong AI chip
RSS