Eva Air ground workers strike over low year-end bonuses, despite record profits

Ground workers for EVA Air, employed by the Eva Air affiliate, Evergreen Airline Services Corporation, are currently on strike. The strike has been ongoing today and yesterday. One of the primary issues of contention is against low year-end bonuses despite record profits by Evergreen, which owns EVA Air, this year. Nevertheless, workers are also demonstrating against the burden on airline ground workers during COVID-19, salary increases being lower than expected, and being made to work overtime. In particular, Evergreen posted record profits in some sectors of the company this year. The Evergreen Marine Corporation reported 304.35b NT in profits for the first three quarters of last year, which is up 92% for year-on-year profit. As a result, the Evergreen Marine Corporation gave some employees up to 52 months in wages as a year-end bonus, which was up from 40 months last year. However, one notes that most employees received between 10 and 45 months’ bonuses, and awarding some specific employees up to 52 months’ bonus serves as publicity for the company. Year-end bonuses in Taiwan, in fact, can sometimes serve as a means for companies to pay workers less fixed salary while maintaining a variable amount as a bonus. <br/>