Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Lexcie/WikiCommons/CC BY-SA 3.0
A TAIWAN RAILWAYS DRIVER was found dead earlier this week while on the job. In particular, the driver was surnamed Lin.
Lin was scheduled to depart, driving a train from Heping station in Hualien to Shulin in New Taipei. Yet when the train failed to depart on time, staff investigated and found that he was unconscious.
After paramedics rushed to the station, it was found that Lin had died. It is thought that he died from shock due to cardiovascular issues. Lin’s colleagues later held a ceremony to see him off, with a special train carrying Lin’s body from Hualien back home.
Railways authorities have sought to defend themselves from allegations that poor working conditions may have contributed to Lin’s sudden death. Specifically, the Taiwan Railways Corporation (TRC) management has sought to emphasize that Lin had a two-hour break before his shift, had no previously known health problems, was scheduled to work only six hours and forty minutes, and had previously driven a train for an earlier shift without incident. To this extent, after the death, the TRC stated that it would increase subsidies for health inspections and that health checks are in place before shifts start.
Nevertheless, the Taiwan Railways Union (TRU) has been critical, seeing as the death took place in the wake of the corporatization of the Taiwan Railways, changing the Taiwan Railways Administration to the TRC.
The TRU had protested the impending corporatization of the TRA for many years before this finally took place earlier this year. Specifically, TRA workers organized through the TRU were critical of the planned change, arguing that the transition would weaken the protections that they enjoyed as public servants.
Workers suggested that the corporatization of the TRA would add to safety issues faced by trains in Taiwan, rather than alleviate them. Namely, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications justified the transition on the auspices of safety. The deadly 2021 rail crash that involved a Taroko express train crashing into a truck that slid into the path of a tunnel was cited as showing the pressing need for corporatization.
Photo credit: 蒼空 翔/WikiCommons/CC BY-SA 3.0
49 were killed and 213 injured in what was Taiwan’s deadliest rail crash in history, surpassed only by a 1948 fire. It was later found that the contractor had won the tender for the construction despite a repeated history of violations and was working despite that there should have been no work going on that day, seeing as it was a public holiday that would see increased rail traffic.
Indeed, that being the case, one notes that the causes of the 2021 rail crash had little to do with the work of TRA drivers or station staff themselves. But, more generally, the claim was that a corporation would be run more efficiently and safely than a public rail.
Workers criticized corporatization as a de facto form of privatization. Likewise, workers criticized how the TRA cut workers by close to half from 22,500 to 12,500 between the 1970s and 2000s even as the number of riders increased for the Taiwan Railways as a whole, to point to larger unaddressed issues regarding safety.
The corporatization of the TRA led to significant labor unrest, though this was insufficient to prevent this from taking place. A strike on International Workers’ Day in 2022, involving 12,000 of 16,000 TRA workers, including 1,300 train drivers, reveals the degree to which workers oppose the corporatization of the TRA. A subsequent strike that was originally planned for the Dragon Boat Holiday before being called off involved 1,348 of 1,400 train drivers.
The government was likely motivated to corporatize the TRA due to the TRA’s lack of profitability and growing debt, which had grown to more than 170 billion NT. The government later claimed that the TRA would be profitable by 2026, though workers expressed hesitation about such plans, citing that the TRA made more money from other revenue sources. A new fund will be set up to handle the TRA’s debt to allow the newly formed TRC to become profitable more quickly.
Lin’s death will likely contribute to further contention between the TRC and TRU. After all, workers continue to have significant concerns about the safety of their working conditions. That Lin died right before he was scheduled to drive a train perhaps points to the possible dangers.