Despite repeated promises from the government that it would do everything it could to improve the lives of ordinary people, it seems to be doing just the opposite.
Official figures released by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics show that as many as 1.68 million families in the nation have seen their incomes decrease over the past seven years, but the Ministry of Economic Affairs is nevertheless trying to halt a plan to raise minimum wage.
On the same day that the figures were released, Minister of Economic Affairs Woody Duh (杜紫軍) said that he had made a phone call to newly sworn-in Minister of Labor Chen Hsiung-wen (陳雄文), asking him to reconsider the plan to raise the minimum wage, and had received a positive response from Chen.
Apparently, Duh had made the phone call under tremendous pressure from the business sector, as business leaders who were invited to attend a meeting to discuss raising the minimum wage protested by refusing to appear. The Chinese National Federation of Industries also released a statement that strongly condemned the government for even considering to raise the minimum wage.
Duh said that he made the phone call because he had received many complaints from business and industry leaders, and agrees with them that the Ministry of Labor’s handling of the issue was inappropriate, adding that Chen agreed to show more “goodwill” to businesses.
While it is to be expected that businesses would try to lobby the government and lawmakers to maximize their profits, it is unacceptable to think that they might succeed in turning a policy decision around just by calling Duh and having him persuade Chen to change his mind, despite several promises by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to take good care of workers and the latest pledge by Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) to raise the minimum wage.
It might also remind people about how difficult it is for workers who have been laid off or are owed salaries or retirement payouts to ask for a meeting with officials or plead for help from the government.
Although labor authorities on central and local government levels have admitted that there were some administrative errors behind several labor disputes that triggered street protests in recent years, officials often insist that they were acting according to the law, and that, while they sympathize with workers, they could not make any exceptions.
Yet exceptions suddenly become possible when business and industry leaders want them.
When business leaders want to meet with officials, whether it is the president, the premier, ministers, or local government officials, meetings are quickly arranged; when business leaders ask for tax cuts, the government quickly arranges them; when business leaders express their desire for relaxed labor regulations, government officials come up with an idea that satisfies both their needs without breaking the law; and now, when business leaders are upset about the government’s plan to raise the minimum wage, they simply call the minister of economic affairs, who persuades the minister of labor to reconsider.
Businesses always argue that if the government grants them what they want, they would make more profit, in turn benefiting workers. However, history tells us that most of the promises from businesses are empty, as are those from government officials.
While the government’s favorable treatment of businesses might help them grow, businesses that rely so much on government policies are obviously not healthy and not truly competitive.
It is time for the government to honor its own words to the public, including workers, and let some businesses be eliminated through competition. Then those that survive would be truly competitive.
From the Iran war and nuclear weapons to tariffs and artificial intelligence, the agenda for this week’s Beijing summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is packed. Xi would almost certainly bring up Taiwan, if only to demonstrate his inflexibility on the matter. However, no one needs to meet with Xi face-to-face to understand his stance. A visit to the National Museum of China in Beijing — in particular, the “Road to Rejuvenation” exhibition, which chronicles the rise and rule of the Chinese Communist Party — might be even more revealing. Xi took the members
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on Friday used their legislative majority to push their version of a special defense budget bill to fund the purchase of US military equipment, with the combined spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.78 billion). The bill, which fell short of the Executive Yuan’s NT$1.25 trillion request, was passed by a 59-0 margin with 48 abstentions in the 113-seat legislature. KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), who reportedly met with TPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) for a private meeting before holding a joint post-vote news conference, was said to have mobilized her
The inter-Korean relationship, long defined by national division, offers the clearest mirror within East Asia for cross-strait relations. Yet even there, reunification language is breaking down. The South Korean government disclosed on Wednesday last week that North Korea’s constitutional revision in March had deleted references to reunification and added a territorial clause defining its border with South Korea. South Korea is also seriously debating whether national reunification with North Korea is still necessary. On April 27, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung marked the eighth anniversary of the Panmunjom Declaration, the 2018 inter-Korean agreement in which the two Koreas pledged to
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is often accused of getting close to, and even conspiring with, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). There are certainly good reasons behind these accusations, yet the confounding truth is that it makes neither historical nor logical sense for it to do so. Whether one believes that the Chinese civil war fought between the KMT and CCP in the previous century has ended or has yet to be resolved, the KMT’s retreat to Taiwan in 1949 resulted in the CCP governing China and the KMT taking root in Taiwan. For years, the KMT refused to even
RSS