With the commotion surrounding pension reform, it is becoming necessary to speak from the heart in support of the workers who are remaining silent.
A lot of people have noted that in the current proposal, employees in the public sector who have worked just as many years as a civil servant would not receive more than a maximum monthly pension of NT$30,000, while some would not even get NT$20,000.
However, the minimum a civil servant would receive is NT$32,160. The maximum pension from the labor insurance program would fall far short of the minimum payment for civil servants.
It would be as if elderly people were living in two different countries.
All the many reasons forwarded in the media in support of the high pensions for public servants — military personnel, civil servants and public-school teachers — are wrong. The arguments that they are justified because their exams were difficult, because the military protects the nation and because the work of police officers and firefighters is dangerous are all wrong.
First: Exams and high standards explain how difficult it is to become a civil servant or a teacher, but once they retire, these reasons for a high salary vanish, because they are clearly irrelevant to retirement pay.
Is there any industry where difficult exams and high employee standards are guarantees for high productivity and thus high pay?
There is no economic theory to support this argument, nor is there such an industry in real life.
If it does not even apply to salaries, then it should also be completely irrelevant to pensions. High pay for civil servants and public-school teachers is acceptable if they are highly productive, but once they retire, their productivity drops to zero.
How, then, can the differences in retirement pay be justified?
Second: A pension should allow a retiree the ability to maintain a minimum standard of living.
Other expenses, like travel, should be handled through savings and investments.
This is a fundamental principle, so why can public servants with their high standards not understand that?
Third: Danger, hard work and time away from family are reasons that could apply to any number of professions, including police officers, sailors and flight attendants.
These factors, risks and difficulties are taken into consideration during service and are reflected in salaries.
If people receive high pensions, they are being rewarded twice for the same thing.
Furthermore, after retirement, the risks disappear, and neither security personnel, police officers nor firefighters are productive any more.
Why should security personnel receive lower pensions than police officers?
Fourth: Some people say that military personnel, civil servants and public-school teachers were the most important force behind the nation’s economic development and that without these groups we would not have the economic prosperity and national defense that Taiwan enjoys today.
This is wrong.
With the exception of publicly owned businesses, these groups are part of the consumer services industry — the military and police — or the indirect producer services industry — teachers, for example, who help increase production, but do so indirectly, without participating directly in production.
Workers were the only ones who participated directly in production and economic activities, and they made the biggest contribution to the economy.
To ascribe working class people’s hard work and contributions to the economy to public servants is utterly unjust.
When it comes to national defense, retired generals who go to China to pay obeisance and then oppose pension reform are in no way justified in their stance.
Fifth, the Civil Servants’ Insurance and the Labor Insurance are government-created retirement programs, so why is it that although civil servants and public-sector workers pay taxes, the funds can only be directed to the Civil Servants’ Insurance when it is short of money?
Why are pensions so high for those on the Civil Servants’ Insurance?
Teachers are paying NT$5,000 per month and they get NT$60,000 per month in pensions, so why can the same thing not apply to public-sector workers?
If it is because of differences in the monthly contribution, surely public-sector workers would be happy to make the same monthly contribution.
The problem is that bosses do not think the same way.
This has been a well-known fact for many years, so why has the government been derelict in its duties and not done anything to address the issue?
As to the argument in support of the 18 percent preferential interest rate, that is even more of a ruse.
Pension funds should be regularly allocated. That is the rule for businesses, so why does the government not do the same? If there really is a lack of funds, why does the government not address the problem by issuing some debt to raise funds?
When interest rates are low, why does the government not just abolish the 18 percent interest rate — a mere administrative order — and pay civil servants their pensions directly instead?
Workers have few channels to make their voices heard and they are sometimes less aware of how the government operates.
As a result, public servants have been allowed to enjoy their benefits for too long.
Now that some of their benefits are being cut, they claim all the credit for the nation’s economic growth and national defense.
They are really taking this much too far.
Lin Shiou-jeng is an associate professor at Chung Chou University of Science and Technology’s marketing and logistics management department.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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