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By Yang Mien-chieh and Jake Chung / Staff reporter, with staff writer
The British Council in Taiwan should increase wages to match current standards or its teachers would go on strike, the Taiwan Higher Education Union and teachers said on Tuesday.
The groups also said they did not rule out directly contacting parents to make their situation known.
Union researcher Chen Po-chien (陳柏謙) said that wages for foreign teachers have not been increased in more than 20 years, during which time commodity prices have risen 25 percent.
Photo: CNA
Tuition at the council’s teaching centers has risen more than 35 percent from NT$550 per hour to NT$745, Chen said.
A manager at one of the British Council in Taiwan centers told him that profit from the council’s operations in Taiwan is among the most extraordinary among its global network of operations, including those in the UK, he said.
Two-thirds of the centers’ teachers are members of the union, which would initiate talks with the British Council in Taiwan and demand that it offer wages to match the 25 percent rise in consumer prices, he added.
The council has offered a wage increase of 2.5 percent for nine months and said it would need to assess the wage structure of its centers worldwide before considering a permanent change.
Chen said that the union plans to contact students’ parents and make them aware of the council’s staggering profits, which are not being shared with the teachers.
The union would also file for labor-employer mediation with the Ministry of Labor, he said, adding that it did not rule out taking legal action.
As the British Council in Taiwan is working closely with the Ministry of Education to realize the government’s bilingual nation policy, the education ministry should raise the issue with the council, the union said.
The council said that through negotiations with the union, it learned that some teaching staff are unhappy with their salaries and it would continue to discuss the issue with the union to settle the dispute.
It would do its best to minimize the negative impact of the dispute on students and their parents while continuing to provide the very best teaching service as negotiations go on, it said.
The Taipei-based British Council in Taiwan has three English-language education centers in the capital, in Xinyi District (信義), in Beitou District’s (北投) Shipai (石牌) area and in Songshan District (松山). Another center is planned for New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口).
The centers combined have more than 2,000 students and 50 teachers.
The Taiwan Higher Education Union was formed in 2012, with its members comprising faculty and staff from the nation’s institutes of higher education.
Additional reporting by CNA
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