New Bloom (Taipei) — The Taiwan Postal Workers’ Union (TPWU) held a protest earlier this month at Chunghwa Post’s Taipei headquarters, demonstrating against what they say is an unfair system of pay within the company.

After planned pay raises, salaries for clerks at service counters would increase by NTD4,950  (US$178), while salaries for couriers would only increase by NTD2,494 (US$90). More broadly, the union has pointed to unequal benefits, high salaries, and increased bonuses for former government employees within the company, while workers recruited after Chunghwa Post transitioned from a government agency to a state-owned enterprise in 2003 receive less benefits. The TPWU has referred to this as the existence of “two systems” within the Chunghwa Post.

Indeed, there are a number of Taiwanese companies that are formerly government-run, but which are now ostensibly privatized. Although many such companies are on paper in private hands, they often retain their close ties to the government, in some cases with the government being the majority stakeholder.

Labor issues within such companies often stem from this complicated relationship with the government. In the case of the Chunghwa Post, workers in the company that joined before 2003 receive benefits akin to those received by civil servants, who along with teachers, members of the police, and members of the military, were granted economic privileges in return for political loyalty during the Nationalist Party (KMT) authoritarian period.

Past years have seen efforts to reform this system of benefits. However, these efforts at reform have met with stiff resistance from those affected. Problems regarding unequal benefits given to senior workers in companies and the exploitation of junior workers who do not receive such benefits are long-standing in Taiwanese companies, but the issue is more extreme in the case of Chunghwa Post.

Labor militancy in Taiwan rose after the 2016 China Airlines strike, and firms close to the government have often been the targets. This was the case for both China Airlines and EVA Air, as well as toll workers, Taiwan Railways workers, telecoms workers in the formerly state-run Chunghwa Telecom, and workers in the energy sector.

It is not yet known whether one of TPWU’s primary aims in its current labor action is to try to appeal to the central government to intercede. Historically, appeals to the central government to resolve a labor dispute have been a common strategy of the labor movement in Taiwan, sometimes to its detriment. This is all the more likely to happen when labor activity takes place in companies with close ties to the government or in which the government is the majority stakeholder, as in this case.

In the past, management of similar firms have attempted to depict discontented workers as privileged and seeking to gain benefits at the public expense. Such accusations were leveled, for example, against striking China Airlines and EVA workers, citing their comparatively high salaries. Efforts were also made to turn different categories of airline workers against each other—such as turning flight attendants against pilots and mechanics—on the basis of their differing pay scales.

Given the impact of Covid-19 on mail services worldwide, it would also not be surprising if the management of Chunghwa Post also attempts to use the pandemic as a means to stigmatize the actions of the postal workers, claiming that they should instead be willing to personally sacrifice for the sake of the company in these trying times.

This article was originally published in New Bloom.

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