The Taoyuan Union of Pilots yesterday said a vote on whether a labor strike is to be organized would still be held even after EVA Airways announced that its employees would receive on average a year-end bonus that is equivalent to six months’ salary and an across-the-board salary raise.
The nation’s second-largest airline yesterday morning announced that it decided to give all employees — ground and flight crew members — a record bonus this year, thanks to a strong recovery of the civil aviation industry after the COVID-19 pandemic, adding that the policy would apply to employees in EVA Airways and its subsidiaries.
Additional bonuses would be available in each company in the middle of next year, depending on this year’s surplus earnings, the airline said.
Photo: CNA
As incentives, ground crew and flight attendants would from next year be given an average raise of NT$5,000, while pilots’ salaries would increase by NT$11,000 to NT$20,000, depending on their positions, the company said.
The announcement came after EVA Air pilots in the union on Friday last week began voting on whether they should organize a labor strike in protest against the company’s alleged unwillingness to increase personnel costs, which they claimed has led to a pilot shortage and frequent aviation accidents. Pilots also said that they do not exclude the possibility of striking during the Lunar New Year holiday without any prior notice.
“The voting process for a labor strike has started, and we would not stop it now. If our members accept what EVA Airways has to offer, it would be reflected in the voting rate,” union researcher Chen Po-chien (陳柏謙) said.
The airline has offered better rewards to its employees than before the vote, but the union would better determine whether pilots actually benefit from the company’s pay raise scheme after getting to know more details, Chen said.
“The dispute has never been about the amount of the year-end bonus. What the union has been focusing on is the overall adjustments of pilots’ salaries and hotel allowances,” Chen said.
Chen also rejected the allegation that pilots could receive a year-end bonus topping NT$1 million. The year-end bonus is calculated based on the base salary given to an employee, and a base salary to a copilot is about NT$45,000, he said.
“Since February last year, we have been hoping to negotiate with EVA Airways over long-term solutions over the distribution of year-end bonus and salaries. However, the airline has never responded positively to our requests,” Chen said. “These matters should all be negotiated first, rather than through a unilateral announcement.”
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
RSS