Let me introduce you to our unions – TSWU (Chunghwa Telecom
The TSWU, which laid its foundation back in 2005, finally with Taiwan’s Law Makers and Legislators amending the Trade Union law suitably by allowing one company to have more than one union during 2011, got formally recognized by Chunghwa Telecom (CHT). Chunghwa Telecom Southern Workers’ Union was formerly known as CTWU. During the President Simon Chang’s tenure, based on the Constitution of Republic of China with respect to free spirit, workers’ union developed locally and creates the needs of political influences. This encourage CHT employees in each and every city to join their local workers’union, with TSWU as their main body. On 31 March 2005, TSWU was approved by the Labor Affairs Bureau of Kaohsiung City Government. It was the first union in Taiwan that has independently applied as a union organization, due to the reason that Executive Yuan promulgated the new Trade Union Law in May 2011.
The union has till date remained independent and is one of the most significant independent unions in South Taiwan. Located in the city of Kaohsiung, this union formed by then President of CTWU (an affiliate of UNI-Global/APRO), Mr. Simon Chang Hsu-chung in 2005 today has more than 1000 due paying members. Simon is currently the president of TSWU. TSWU has so far done rounds of collective bargaining successfully with CHT and the agreements are binding on both the parties. The union count it as one of its greatest achievements, considering the fact that the company (CHT) does negotiation/bargaining with CTWU as per its charter on a regular basis. These collective agreements were exclusively done with TSWU and more than 1000 members of the TSWU got covered by these collective agreements. Overall as its adviser I can say that TSWU has very well established its own identity among the employees of CHT who are employed in the southern provinces of Taiwan like Kaohsiung, Pingtung, Tainan, etc.
The other union, viz., TNU also formed and established by Simon has close to 125 dispatch workers working with CHT and other major multinationals as its members. TNU is dedicated only to the rights and interests of dispatch workers (especially young women). They mostly constitute the part of large call centre workforce in the country. To talk about one of its greatest achievement, TNU has been championing the cause of dispatch workers in Taiwan and so far has succeeded in making close to 1500 dispatch workers get absorbed by the CHT as its permanent employees. It was only because of the relentless work of TNU that CHT management finally succumbed to the pressure created by TNU and agreed to absorb 1500 dispatch workers on the roll of the company.
Talking about Simon, as we believe that you will not take time to recall your long meetings with him when he was the president of CTWU. In fact he cherishes his fond memories of having your company when you both met on different occasions. I am not sure if it is needed for me to clarify few issues before we come to our main point. As you must be aware that CTWU’s current leadership is not in good terms with Simon. As per my observation, Zhu Chuanbing who is the current president of CTWU takes all precautionary measures to ensure that Simon does not get re-elected as president of CTWU. Zhu has made attempts in the past to defame Simon for which he was sentenced by court and he is not hesitant in adopting measures that are anti-democratic in nature by which he is curbing the independent right of individual employees of CHT to choose the president of their union (CTWU). So, I felt as an adviser to TSWU and TNU, I should bring certain facts to your notice so that you can be familiar with the ground reality before taking a call on our email.
Coming to the main reason for which I am writing this long email, we at TSWU as well as TNU strongly feel that there is a need to join the global union federation in the sector and contribute significantly with the resources that we have at our end. We are a firm believer of global networking and we believe in cross-border solidarity. Plus we have a decent experience of remaining affiliate of GUF in the past (where CTWU was a formal affiliate of UNI-Global). Today, we are progressively moving forward in the direction of standing out as an independent union in the telecommunication and allied sector in Taiwan with members not only taking part in engaging with CHT management but also showing cross-sector solidarity with workers from other companies. We believe that our association with UNI-Global is the need of the hour as with us having on board as an affiliate, UNI can engage with multinationals in the sector in this part of the world.
Therefore, I make a sincere request to you to kindly treat this email as our application for becoming affiliate of UNI-Global/APRO and do the needful.
We look forward to hearing from you and look forward to working together for the furtherance of the objective of hundreds and thousands of workers whom we are collectively representing in the international forum.
In Solidarity.
TSWU
