The legislature’s Transportation Committee yesterday voted nine to five to grant preliminary approval to a draft statute establishing a state-run Taiwan Railway Corp.
The government is proposing transitioning the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) from an agency to a state-run corporation after major express train derailments in 2018 and last year exposed structural problems within the agency that have compromised safety.
The committee considered a version of the draft statute proposed by the Taiwan Railway Labor Union, the largest union in the agency, in addition to the government’s draft. The committee agreed to 16 of the 23 articles in the union’s proposal following a four-hour deliberation yesterday morning.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
The seven remaining articles are to be settled through negotiations with opposition lawmakers, after which the statute is to be put to a final vote at a plenary session.
Those articles involve clearing the TRA’s short-term debts, protecting employee benefits and securing funding for early retirement packages.
Opposition lawmakers tried to stop committee deliberations through a series of procedural questions. When that failed, they tried to halt a final vote at the plenary session.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chen Hsueh-sheng (陳雪生) said the committee should give the Ministry of Transportation and Communications more time to negotiate unresolved articles with the union so that the committee could submit a draft statute unopposed by the union to the plenary session for final approval, Chen said.
Lawmakers also proposed five motions to change the wording in some of the articles, KMT Legislator Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said.
“Must the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) insist on moving the draft statute out of the committee given all the unsettled issues?” Hung asked.
The ministry should consolidate different proposals, and the committee should schedule another meeting to review these remaining articles, he said.
DPP Legislator Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲), who presided over yesterday’s committee meeting, put the bill to a vote to break the legislative gridlock.
Of the 14 legislators who appeared at the committee, nine voted to grant preliminary approval to the draft statute.
Wang told the committee that the ministry had in 2003 attempted to negotiate with the union about corporatizing the TRA.
“It is almost impossible to reach a consensus with the union, which has 15 branches across the country,” he said, adding that the TRA has two other unions to negotiate with.
The ministry said that it would meet the union’s demand to establish a budget to resolve the TRA’s short-term debts. The revenues are to come from TRA property revenues and government budgets, among other sources.
Leasing TRA properties would only pay for the interest on the debts, Wang said.
The ministry also agreed to highlight operational safety in Article 2 of the draft statute, which states that the railway operator should thoroughly follow regulations to ensure safe train operation.
Separately, Wang said that the ministry would announce a plan today to handle travelers on International Workers’ Day long weekend, adding it would use high-speed rail trains as well as freeway, highway, city and tour buses.
“We will ask people not to take TRA trains if the workers insist on taking May 1 off. We will also ensure that trains operating on that day are safe to take,” he said.
About 12,000 TRA workers said they would not work on May 1, including 90 percent of train drivers, the TRA said.
An undersea cable to Penghu County has been severed, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said today, with a Chinese-funded ship suspected of being responsible. It comes just a month after a Chinese ship was suspected of severing an undersea cable north of Keelung Harbor. The National Communications and Cyber Security Center received a report at 3:03am today from Chunghwa Telecom that the No. 3 cable from Taiwan to Penghu was severed 14.7km off the coast of Tainan, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) upon receiving a report from Chunghwa Telecom began to monitor the Togolese-flagged Hong Tai (宏泰)
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
RISING TOURISM: A survey showed that tourist visits increased by 35 percent last year, while newly created attractions contributed almost half of the growth Changhua County’s Lukang Old Street (鹿港老街) and its surrounding historical area clinched first place among Taiwan’s most successful tourist attractions last year, while no location in eastern Taiwan achieved a spot in the top 20 list, the Tourism Administration said. The listing was created by the Tourism Administration’s Forward-looking Tourism Policy Research office. Last year, the Lukang Old Street and its surrounding area had 17.3 million visitors, more than the 16 million visitors for the Wenhua Road Night Market (文化路夜市) in Chiayi City and 14.5 million visitors at Tainan’s Anping (安平) historical area, it said. The Taipei 101 skyscraper and its environs —
Taiwan on Friday said a New Zealand hamburger restaurant has apologized for a racist remark to a Taiwanese customer after reports that it had first apologized to China sparked outrage in Taiwan. An image posted on Threads by a Taiwanese who ate at Fergburger in Queenstown showed that their receipt dated Sunday last week included the words “Ching Chang,” a racial slur. The Chinese Consulate-General in Christchurch in a statement on Thursday said it had received and accepted an apology from the restaurant over the incident. The comment triggered an online furor among Taiwanese who saw it as an insult to the
RSS