Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: 陳 ポーハン﹝柏翰﹞/Flickr/CC BY 2.0
THE TAIWAN RAILWAYS UNION has criticized plans to extend the high-speed rail from Taipei to Yilan. Plans for the high-speed rail have already conditionally cleared an environmental impact assessment, perhaps showing that the government intends to push the project through quickly.
Plans for an extension of the high-speed rail have been criticized as leading to a decline in profits for the Taiwan Railways Corporation (TRC), at a time when worker benefits have already been slashed in the name of increasing profitability. In particular, the extension of the high-speed rail would lead to 58 billion NT in losses over the next 30 years, which is 800 million NT annually. Likewise, the project will cost 350 billion NT. The project will require two years of design before it begins, as well as passing further assessments, and would be complete in 2035 if it is approved by the Executive Yuan.
Consequently, the government has been criticized on a number of fronts. One of the key issues at hand is redundancy, in that it is already possible to drive from Taipei to Yilan, and there is already a regular rail system that is under construction to provide train service from Taipei to Yilan, at a cost of 200 billion NT. It is believed that the high-speed rail system will only reduce traffic from Taipei to Yilan by 5%, but it will significantly decrease the profitability of the train between Taipei and Yilan. Still, by contrast, the government has claimed that the project is needed to reduce unmanageable levels of congestion on highways.
To this extent, the government has been criticized for a lack of transparency. Only three public meetings were held about the plans to extend the high-speed rail, with relatively little public discussion ahead of the environmental impact assessment. Taiwan Railways Union workers were themselves taken unaware by the plans to extend the high-speed rail.
Among those to criticize the plan is former Minister of Transportation and Communications Ho Chen Tan. Either way, it should be clear that the government continues to have little interest in dialoguing with workers. Nor does the company management have a vision for making the company profitable, even when the TRC’s current lack of profitability has been used to justify the company’s corporatization and the attendant loss of worker benefits when they no longer were civil servants but workers at a state-owned enterprise after the corporatization took effect.
It was in January 2024 that the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) became the TRC, putting an end to a long-running labor struggle.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications justified the transition on the auspices of safety. This cited the deadly 2021 rail crash that involved a Taroko express train crashing into a truck that slid into the path of a tunnel.
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.
After the crash, the MOTC claimed that the corporatization of the TRA would add to the safety of railways in Taiwan. Precedents such as the corporatization of the Japan Railways were pointed to as positive examples.
Concerns from workers were, however, that this would worsen conditions for them in that they would lose the benefits they enjoy as public servants. Workers suggested that poorer working conditions would add to rather than alleviate safety concerns.
Oftentimes, workers would point to a decline in the number of TRA workers despite increasing riders as worsening such dangers. 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.
The corporatization of the TRA was sometimes framed as a de facto form of privatization. Otherwise, one notes labor contentions in Taiwanese state-owned enterprises that were formerly government agencies but were corporatized to this day.
A significant concern for the government was likely TRA’s lack of profitability and growing debt, seeing as this amounts to more than 170 billion NT. The government currently claims that the TRA will be profitable by 2026, though workers expressed hesitation about such plans, citing that the TRA made more money from other revenue sources. In spite of this lack of profitability, salaries for TRA executives have been increased.
Yet one notes the significant labor unrest that the corporatization of the TRA led to–and that 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.
Since corporatization, workers have expressed concerns that the TRC would seek to liquidate a large amount of property in order to pay back debt. To this extent, cutting worker benefits was framed as most likely leading to a more dangerous environment for riders.
Still, with the TRC pursuing unprofitable projects that will likely require further cuts in worker benefits to pay for, one has little faith in the TRC to turn the company around. This will be dangerous for workers and riders alike.