The China Airlines Strike

A traditional food....

The strike began at the end of May...

This was posted to Facebook...

Around two thousand China Airline (A private sector company where the state of ROC, the bourgeois state that reigns in Taiwan, is the biggest shareholder, not to be confused with the Chinese state owned Air China) employees including pilots, flight attendants, and airport logistics workers have taken to the streets refusing the company's mandate for them to sign a waiver that forfeits their 8-hour days, normal working hours, and right for union involvement in negotiating work time as accorded to by the bourgeois state.

This is a heartening addition to the recent surge of labor demonstrations against the state, where the more militant sections of these demonstrations have been making increasingly political conclusions that understands neither of the establishment parties, be the dastardly KMT or the capricious DPP, can make any progress towards ending the oppression that the working class of Taiwan endures daily.

Over at New Bloom Brian Hoie had a piece on it:

As part of a waiver which workers are required to sign as part of Article 84-1 of the Labor Standards Law, according to workers, China Airlines is seeking to increase the work time of airline staff to 220 hours per month, more than the 174 hours which the act would stipulate. It is reported that China Airlines would also seek to redefine work hours for flight attendants, counting work hours as starting from 90 minutes from departure to 30 minutes after landing, a decrease from the previous policy of counting work hours from 140 minutes before departure and 60 minutes after landing.

Despite the shortening of work hours in which cabin crew would be paid, the amount of work cabin crew have to perform would remain the same, however. Workers would also be signing away their rights to overtime and negotiation of work hours through the waiver. Article 84-1 of the Labor Standards Law is aimed at reducing excessive overtime. Part of the issue at hand, however, is that international airline flights can last for over eight hours. There is concern that this would lead to flight attendants working on regional flights being deprived of their rights as compared to those working on international flights, as well as loss of rest time. As such, workers are refusing to sign off on the waiver.

In the demonstration, the Taoyuan Flight Attendant’s Union and Taoyuan Pilot’s Union was joined by the China Airlines Maintenance and Engineering Labor Union. There are calls from unions for a possible strike to occur from June 9 to June 11, during the Dragon Boat Festival, if negotiations are unable to be resolved by then. In joining with the cabin crew union’s call for a possible strike, the China Airlines Maintenance and Engineering Labor Union has cited the deteriorating conditions of airplane maintenances staff, with loss of job security, increased turnover rates, and outsourcing of work to dispatch companies. Maintenance staff have cited the importance of their work in ensuring airplane safety in spite of poor treatment by China Airlines. Likewise, pilots have expressed concerns that they will have their amount of leave cut.

The News Lens observed last month...

The Labor Standards Act stipulates a monthly maximum of 168 working hours, but an air crew member has to work 230 duty hours for 30 consecutive days and the in-flight resting hours do not count as duty hours.

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