In the wake of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government’s move to raise the salaries of civil servants this month, there has been grumbling among party workers that they have not received a similar increase.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has repeatedly called on the private sector to raise salaries and a 3 percent pay raise was given to government employees effective July 1, benefiting 1.25 million people — including civil servants, school teachers, military personnel and 430,000 retired civil servants.
The last time public employees received a pay increase was in 2005.
For KMT employees, however, many have not seen a raise for years, with some even experiencing a pay cut.
Earlier this year, when the issue of a pay increase was raised, senior party officials responded by thanking party workers for relinquishing the chance of a pay-raise “to weather the hard times with the party.”
In April, the KMT Workers’ Union called on party officials to clearly state “who were the ones willing to weather hard times with the party” and urged Ma, who doubles as KMT chairman, not to go against his own call, as “President Ma,” for the private sector to raise employee salaries.
With the January presidential and legislative elections approaching, the union called on party headquarters to provide better care for full-time workers well-versed in party affairs and who have spent their youth and time in serving the party.
“Before you attack the enemy, you have to secure your rear,” the union said.
The workers want to feel that they are cared for and enjoy the benefit of a pay raise, the union said, adding that such a move would spur party workers to work even harder to help the party win in the upcoming elections.
Although party earnings last year hit NT$3.5 billion (US$121.5 million), with stock dividends accounting for almost NT$2.9 billion, or four-fifths of total earnings, KMT headquarters said the party’s finances were constrained by huge personnel expenditures.
To ease the grumbling among party workers, KMT party headquarters recently decided to give out money in the form of bonuses.
Sources said the party would give out NT$5,000 per person for this month and NT$2,500 per person during the Mid-Autumn Festival and another NT$2,500 before the Lunar New Year.
The union has expressed its thanks to party headquarters, saying it was a welcome move.
Translated by Jake Chung, Staff Writer
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching