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COVID-19: Unions call for direct aid payments to employees
By Jason Pan / Staff reporter
Labor union representatives yesterday called on the government to distribute COVID-19 relief funds directly to workers.
They asked the Ministry of Labor to take charge of the process, and not to go through industry associations or trade unions, as done in the past.
The government has raised the nationwide COVID-19 alert to level 3, which has led to commercial districts seeing few customers even on weekends.
A scooter rider pauses outside shuttered food vendors in Taipei’s historic Dadaocheng area yesterday.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
Shops and vendors have witnessed a steep drop in business, while many workers have seen their salaries reduced, which has affected their livelihoods, New Taipei Confederation of Trade Unions chairman Hung Ching-fu (洪清福) told an online briefing.
People in Taipei cross a road under light rain yesterday. The Central Weather Bureau said that the weather front is expected to continue into Tuesday, with occasional showers or thundershowers likely in western Taiwan and in the northeast.
COVID-19: SMS registration used for tracing ‘confirmed cases’
NO MASS SURVEILLANCE: An interior ministry official said users’ telecoms see the number, the date and time, and the venue’s code which they already have
By Lee I-chia / Staff reporter
The free short message service (SMS) registration launched by the government last week so that retail stores and restaurants could record customers’ contact information is only to be used for tracing the contacts of confirmed COVID-19 cases, not for mass surveillance, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday.
All businesses and public venues are required to record their customers’ contact information for possible use in contact tracing, after the center raised the COVID-19 alert to level 3 for the whole nation on Wednesday last week.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday criticized the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) for the state of Taiwan-China relations, and urged it to recognize the so-called “1992 consensus.”
Speaking at a Taipei symposium on Taiwan-China relations, Ma said that President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration had failed to come up with an alternative to the “consensus” and had fostered ill sentiment toward China.
The “1992 consensus” a term former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) in 2006 admitted making up in 2000 refers to a tacit understanding between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese government that both sides acknowledge