The Act Governing the Retirement of School Faculty and Staff (學校教職員退休條例) should be amended to eliminate double-income “fat-cats” as the government and lawmakers consider pension reforms, union activists said yesterday.
“We hope that if the new administration is serious about pension reforms, they will give this element priority instead of leaving it out,” said Lo Te-shui (羅德水), director of the National Federation of Teachers Union’s publicity department, calling for amendments to slash the pensions of public-school teachers, professors and officials who take new jobs at private schools following their official retirement.
“It is not that you cannot work after retirement — but if you do, some of your pension should be stopped,” he said, adding that the union’s draft legislation would cut pensions by 65 percent for those taking new jobs with salaries equal to more than half of their original salaries for the period they are employed.
The percentage represents the government subsidy proportion of pensions, because only 35 percent of pension contributions are deducted from teacher’s salaries, he said, adding that the amendments were necessary to close “revolving door” loopholes for Ministry of Education officials.
“Revolving-door rules restrict public officials from taking jobs in profit-making enterprises within two or three years of retirement, but private schools are not for profit, so they are exempt from the restrictions,” he said. “However, private-school interests are closely connected with the ministry because they receive substantial government subsidies, with the ministry determining how much individual schools are allocated.”
Professors and teachers should also not occupy posts that could be taken by young people, as schools downsize in the face of falling student numbers, he said.
Pension reform is one of the key priorities of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), with details of a pension reform committee to draft proposals prior to a special national congress to be announced this week.
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:
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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