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Taiwan High-Speed Rail Corp. (THSRC) will provide 545 extra trains and 2,065 additional carriages during next month’s Chinese Lunar New Year holiday. The number of the extra carriages has hit a record high.

However, according to the Taiwan High-Speed Rail Workers’ Union, the THSRC has never paid overtime on national holidays and owe its employees a total of NT$500 million (approximately US$15 million) overtime pay. So far the debts have been ignored by the THSRC.

On January 9, the union issued a statement on Facebook, saying if the THSRC does not give out the overtime pay, the union will urge employees to take the statutory holiday and the THSRC might face a shortage of manpower during the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday.

The union says, according to the Labor Standards Act, employees can take statutory holiday without request and all of the employees, including the drivers and station staff, have the right to statutory holidays even if that day happens to be the employees’ normal shift. The union will determine whether to take holiday leaves based on negotiation results with the THSRC no later than January 25.

Liberty Times reports, the union says in a statement issued this morning that Taiwan High Speed Rail performs wonderful on safety, punctuality and professional services in the international arena; however, its employees have always suffered from working overtime, lack of rest, deprivation of holidays, not being paid for working overtime and so on.

Translated by June
Edited by Olivia Yang

Sources: