Protesters search for DPP leaders in Taipei eateries

RUMBLINGS OF DISCONTENT:Critics called legislators ‘murderers of holidays,’ while a union member asked how the legislators could eat while ‘workers are fasting’

By Abraham Gerber  /  Staff reporter

Members of the Workers’ Struggle Alliance yesterday went “looking” for Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) leaders in restaurants along a street adjacent to the Legislative Yuan in Taipei as they continued a hunger strike to protest the proposed cut in the number of national holidays.

Members of the consortium of unions and activists marched along Qingdao E Road (青島東路) for almost an hour, peering into restaurants and holding up wanted posters emblazoned with the photographs of several members of the DPP legislative caucus, including Legislative Speaker Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全), DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘), DPP caucus secretary-general (總幹事) Wu Ping-jui (吳秉叡) and the party’s two Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee conveners, Chen Ying (陳瑩) and Wu Yu-chin (吳玉琴).

“The pictures in our hands are of several legislators who favor cutting the number of national holidays, please help us find them,” alliance member Kuo Kuan-chun (郭冠均) said through a loudhailer. “As our hunger strike enters its third day, we have seen that the DPP is not willing to come and face us.”

“Workers are fasting — does your conscience allow you to eat in peace?” Taiwan Higher Education Union department director Lin Po-yi (林柏儀) said of the legislators, as the protesters shouted their names, calling them “murderers of holidays.”

Seven protesters have been on hunger strike outside the gates of the Legislative Yuan since Friday last week, protesting a proposed amendment to the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) which would cut the number of national holidays from 19 to 12 as part reforms aimed at cutting the workweek.

Protesters pasted wanted posters outside of the legislature’s Qingdao E Road gate and a building housing Chen Ying’s office, handing out the remaining posters to onlookers before returning to their encampment outside the legislature’s main entrance.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators occupied the speaker’s podium last week to block a review of the amendment and senior government officials said that it would not be reviewed today.