Taipei, June 7 (CNA) Members of the Taoyuan Flight Attendants Union (TFAU) have voted in favor of going on strike at EVA Airways over work hour and overseas pay issues, the union announced Friday, but it did not say if and when a strike will actually take place.
"We may go on a strike at any moment from now on given that we have obtained the legal right to do so," said TFAU Secretary-General Cheng Ya-ling, urging EVA Air to recognize the determination of its flight attendants.
Cheng put the onus for a strike on EVA Air, saying that whether one takes place will depend on if the carrier is willing to improve the working conditions of its flight attendants.
The union has a total of 5,933 members from EVA Air, Taiwan's other major international carrier China Airlines, and other smaller carriers.
In the vote that took place from May 13 to June 6, 4,038 members voted in favor of the EVA Air strike, far exceeding the backing of more than 50 percent of members required by law for a strike vote to pass.
The union also voluntarily set a second threshold to address concerns that the vote could be manipulated by non-EVA Air workers, requiring that any vote to strike must be approved by at least 80 percent of its EVA Air members.
That threshold was also met as 2,949 of the union's 3,276 EVA Air members, or 90 percent, voted in favor of the labor action.
The approval of a strike came in the wake of unsuccessful negotiations with management over overseas allowances and work hours on regional round trips.
The union has demanded that the airline raise flight attendants' allowances when off work in overseas destinations from NT$90 (US$3) to NT$150 per hour per flight, and that the treatment be limited to only union members.
It has also called on EVA Air to allow flight attendants working any of nine regional round-trip routes to work only one way and rest overnight, rather than working both legs of the flight on the same day.
The flight duty period on those nine routes often exceeds 12 hours when both legs of the round trip are worked, the maximum work hours allowed in a single shift under the Labor Standards Act, the union said.
Among the routes cited as meeting that criteria are flights connecting Taiwan and Tokyo, Beijing, Phnom Penh, Ho Chi Minh City, China's Harbin and Shenyang, and Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia.
