Why is nobody talking about the labour protests?

Because labor should not protest. Labour should WORK. More. Harder. Better. More hours. For better efficiency and greater results.

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Told you about my neighbor complaining why people did not work longer hours. I mean, they did during the Glory Years, why not now? Simply does not compute…

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This. Also, I wonder how many failed restaurants have been done in by rising rents (rather than rising wages).

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Hope seems to be going out of fashion these days and Taiwan is just ahead of the curve. Or should I say in the middle of the curve as I think there are quite a few trailblazers ahead of us.

And I guess the hallmark-card reponse to disappointment as such would be that things change all the time and 40 years ago people were shot dead in Zhongli for protesting against a rigged election. I don’t buy it but well it’s for you anyway.

Finally, for those interested, the next protest is on the 23rd.

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Actually, if a restaurant starts doing well, it si time to move, becaus ethe landlord will come up with unreasonable rent hikes. Ask any restauranteur in this forum. It si like they think people are hitting the lottery or something.

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Here they are again, protesting in the freezing cold and bone soaking rain.

Taipei, Jan. 9 (CNA) They knew there was little chance of stopping passage of controversial labor law revisions, but young people still braved the cold and wet outside the Legislative Yuan on Monday night to make themselves heard.

They are among many who strongly oppose a government-sponsored amendment to the Labor Standards Act, which is scheduled for a final floor vote Tuesday to clear the Legislature where the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) holds the majority of seats.

As night fell Monday, pouring rain drenched the participants of the protest that began at 9 a.m. that morning, but they stayed on site even though they could only take shelter under umbrellas or raincoats.

Vivi Sun (孫玉薇), a 25-year-old graduate student in labor research at National Chengchi University, was one of the few hundred protesters there at around 10:30 p.m. Most of them were young people.

“Many people think that taking to the streets won’t change anything, but in the face of a terrible policy, as a citizen, the only thing we can do is to speak out, again and again, to have our voices heard,” Sun told CNA.

A documentary worker, Yeh said she has seen cases of how overwork adversely affect society, citing patient safety affected by work-related fatigue among medical personnel and the loss of parental time with children.

“The government has vowed to address the problem of low birth rate, but when people are trapped in low wages and don’t have time to take care of their children, isn’t that just lip service?” said Yeh, who had camped outside the Legislature during the Sunflower movement.

Also a participant in the Sunflower Movement, 29-year-old Alexander Wang, a graduate student in biology, told CNA he joined the protest against the labor law amendment with great sadness.

“Rules on work hours are human rights issues. Workers need sufficient rest to take care of themselves. Their salary is not high. When they retire, most of them do not enjoy a secure retirement pension and are likely to sustain occupational injuries resulting from overtime work,” he said.

One of the rationales cited by the government in support of the amendment is that it would benefit workers because it would give them enough hours of work to increase their income. That is unacceptable, Wang said.

“To resolve the problem of working poverty, the government should facilitate wage increases and profit-sharing, not giving more legal leeway for employers to further exploit low-paid workers,” he said.

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Love these guys

"Similarly, the DPP accuses the NPP of putting on a show with its previous hunger strike and occupation in front of the Presidential Office, or has attempted to smear the NPP with claims that this benefits the KMT. Such accusations are ironic and also evidence hypocrisy. "

This bit makes my blood boil. All politics is a show. The important thing is the NPP* intention

Thanks for the link, especially now (at least for me), because by clicking Lin Shu-fen’s picture, I was taken to a page that has a couple of videos of the recent (was it yesterday?) protests, one of which shows protesters lying on some train tracks. Here’s that second link, the one I got by clicking the picture (the two vids are a ways down the page):

Here are a few news videos which purport to show brief segments of what appears to me to be the same event at the tracks (I think there’s a little variation between them, but of course there’s likely some redundancy as well):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mJChKTvkGY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjyskVu8DmE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPMC2eMsAIU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS1CVAFH0pQ

Thanks again, @OrangeOrganics.

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2 posts were split to a new topic: gain.

I was in the train station when the goon police marched through yesterday.

You must not put too much faith on NPP. They have proposed their own version of the amendment and it was barely any improvement. You might end up feeling betrayed again.

And about Ko, whom you seem to like. Why do you think there are this many cops and barriers in the area? He hates protestors. He wants people to be submissive. He has zero knowledge on civil rights and nor does he care. He’s as much a cunt as everyone else in the DPP and the KMT.

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If the NPP, Ko, the DPP, and the KMT are out, then who’s on the workers’ side?

I like the guys who actually protest for what they believe in, rather than the Taiwanese who complain about how the protests are inconveniencing them. Wasn’t talking about the NPP itself.

Ko’s reaction was disappointing.

Was discussing this with some Taiwanese friends. They were not sure if the DPP are bad or just stupid. Decided half of both.

They probably think this is the best thing for the ‘economy’, being part of the older generation who doesn’t understand the changing world. The Taiwanese SME model won’t work anymore and Taiwanese companies can’t compete with China on price. So a large amount of ignorance and stupidity

At the same time, obviously in the pocket of the bosses. So bad.

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They just were here and were met by a wall of shield wielding cops. :frowning_face::worried::fearful:

Who’s more of a let down, Tsai Yingwen or Aung San Suu Kyi? Both are incredibly disappointing.

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what’s a good way to break shield formations? The police is basically doing what the Romans did with the scutum, replacing the gladius with batons.

If it’s cavalry we need, I think scooters would do pretty well.

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I do not know who trained them, but they do this hakka -I mean New Zealand hakka- style battle cry with each coordinated forward step, like people do when hauling/lifting a heavy load. They practice that dance step upstairs in the afternoons and I fear one of these days this old building will not take it and one of them cops will fall square on my lap, shield and baton and all.

I ain’t giving him back if that happens.