To Strike is the Urgent Task for Taiwan’s Trade Unions

Labor Vision (Taiwan)

 2014.03.29

Since the March 18 occupation of the Legislative Yuan, with the exception of the trade union of the Cosmos Bank, which explicitly proposed to strike in support of the students, trade unions in general have been hestitating in relation to the students‘ action. The Taiwan Confederation of Trade Unions regards the issue of the service trade agreement with China as a political issue, and thinks it not appropriate for trade unions to strike over this reason. The Labor Rights Association even led several trade unions to demand for the early implementation of the trade agreement. We, however, declare that trade unions should not be absent from this anti-service trade agreement movement, rather they should strike to defend their own labor rights. In doing this unions are not just expressing solidarity with the students, rather they are also acting to fight for their own rights. Therefore trade unions should not allow themselves to be restricted by the law governing the right to strike, rather they should decide in accordance to what is to the best interest of labor. We hereby propose:

1 Labor should condemn those fake unions and fake labor groups for betraying the interests of labor at this critical moment.

2 Trade Unions and labor should prepare to strike, and join the anti-service trade agreement movement.

This is a summary of the statement. For the full Chinese version please visit our Chinese page.