Lawmakers yesterday questioned the legitimacy of granting severance pay to the assistants of National Assembly members -- a now defunct position after the assembly was effectively abolished last May -- warning that the plan would cost too much for the already cash-strapped government.
"I am surprised to have read today that the Executive Yuan has agreed to put aside NT$80 million as severance payments for the assistants of National Assembly delegates," New Party lawmaker Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) said at a legislative session yesterday. "Once the precedent is set, it would cost the government around NT$2 billion a year to cover similar expenses that would be requested by lawmakers or other publicly elected representatives."
Echoing Lai's opinion, another New Party lawmaker, Hsieh Chi-ta (謝啟大), said that although legislators' assistants were entitled to severance payments in accordance with the legislature's Organizational Law (立法院組織法), legislators had never applied for the money, for fear of setting a bad example for other elected officials.
"If all publicly elected officials follow suit, it would be like the government throwing money down a bottomless pit, requiring an inexhaustible supply of funds," she said.
According to the Chinese language press yesterday, the Executive Yuan has agreed to a request made by the National Assembly Secretariat to earmark NT$80 million as severance pay for aides of national assembly deputies who were deprived of their jobs after the National Assembly was essentially scrapped on May 20 last year.
There used to be more than 300 assembly deputies, and each deputy was permitted to have two assistants whose salaries would be paid for by the government.
The report said that these 600 assistants would each receive NT$200,000 in severance pay for losing their jobs when the National Assembly was abolished, and that the deputies could file applications for the money by the end of August.
Lin Chuan (
"In 1998, the Council of Labor Affairs ruled that treatment of the aides of National Assembly delegates should be equivalent to that of legislators' assistants, who are under the protection of the Labor Standards Law (勞基法)," Lin said. "If lawmakers object to this regulation, they should first amend the legislature's Organizational Law."
When asked about the controversy yesterday, Liu I-te (劉一德), a former assembly deputy, said it was a reasonable request.
"It is just like any relationship between employees and employers. If the company closes, the workers are authorized to get severance pay," he said.
"There is nothing wrong with deputies trying to safeguard the rights of their assistants," Liu added.
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