The management of Nan Shan Life Insurance Co (南山人壽) yesterday reached an initial agreement with the workers’ union to return some NT$4 billion (US$123.8 million) in cash, or around 27 percent of its NT$15 billion provident fund, to employees starting on Monday, the labor union said.
Jonathan Chang (張政文), a spokesperson for the insurer’s labor union, told the Taipei Times yesterday that sales agents and employees who have worked for Nan Shan for less than 10 years will be entitled to apply for a refund equivalent to 15 percent of their shares in the fund. Others will be entitled to a fund greater than 15 percent of their shares according to their seniority, he said.
However, Nan Shan Life president and chief executive officer Frank Chan (陳潤霖) gave no date for the compensation during a face-to-face meeting with 25 union representatives yesterday afternoon, as he needed to confirm the deal with its prospective new owner, Hong Kong-based Primus Financial Holdings Ltd, Chang said.
Chang attributed the peaceful conclusion yesterday of a sit-in staged by thousands of sales agents to the progress in negotiations.
Some 15,000 sales agents — nearly half of Nan Shan Life’s work force — took to the street in front of the insurer’s Taipei office yesterday morning, accusing Primus Financial of being insincere in its efforts to address labor disputes.
“We have been talking to the management of both Nan Shan and Primus Financial for four months altogether and no conclusions have been reached at all,” said Ger Tzen-yi (葛讚益), a Nan Shan sales manager who helped organize yesterday’s sit-in.
The participants were mostly young, mid-ranking sales agents.
“They [the management] keep lying to us,” he said.
Another 42-year-old agent surnamed Chen, who wore a yellow band across his forehead with the word “angry” in Chinese, said he took part in the sit-in to fight for his rights as an employee of 15 years and the rights of Nan Shan’s 4 million policyholders.
The labor union has long asked that Nan Shan’s former owner, financially troubled American International Group (AIG), and Primus Financial give up management of some of its provident fund “to show the management’s sincerity in addressing labor issues,” Ger said.
The protesters urged the Financial Supervisory Commission to ensure that the transfer of ownership of Nan Shan is completed legally and that policyholders’ rights are safeguarded.
Shortly after yesterday’s sit-in commenced, Chan came outside and urged the protesters to sit down and talk face-to-face with the management, including himself.
Protesters responded by throwing neckties at him.
Chan told reporters that he was fully authorized by Primus Financial to negotiate terms on its new compensation proposal, in which Primus Financial only agreed to relinquish control over the provident fund in six months after its official takeover, pending regulatory approval.
At the protest, union representative Grace Fung (馮影) described AIG as the employees’ “ex-husband, who has not only confiscated his wife’s property, but also forced his wife to accept a new husband [Primus Financial] before she can get her money back.”
Primus Financial pledged retention bonuses worth two months of sales agents’ salaries, to be distributed in July next year and January 2011, as well as a 1 percent sales bonus for local agents, the insurer said in a written statement.
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