The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) plans to lay off more than 400 employees as a result of its financial problems, a senior party member said yesterday.
The party has submitted its layoff plan to the Taipei Department of Labor as required two months before the planned downsizing is scheduled to start, KMT Administration and Management Committee director Chiu Da-chan (邱大展) told reporters at the KMT’s Taipei headquarters yesterday morning.
Severance pay for those to be laid off and pensions for those retiring will cost nearly NT$1.5 billion (US$46.87 million), he added.
Given the cost of the layoffs, the party will ask the Ill-Gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee to release some of its frozen funds to foot the bill, he said.
“Many of the members of the Cabinet-affiliated committee have a legal background and should therefore be well-versed in the law, but they have distorted the law and deemed payment of salaries a contractual obligation,” Chiu said.
The assets committee’s refusal to acknowledge salaries as a statutory obligation would set it against the nation’s entire labor force, he said.
It has repeatedly vowed to create a level playing field for political parties, which is exactly what the KMT intends to do through the lay-off plan, Chiu said, adding that the assets committee should live up to its word and grant the KMT access to its frozen assets.
“Only by doing so can the KMT truly conduct structural reforms and start again,” he added.
The KMT plans to lay off 738 employees, but will rehire 310 for jobs at its headquarters and branch offices, adding that discussions will be held with labor union representatives about the plan, Chiu said.
The KTM has faced financial difficulties since its main bank accounts were frozen and it was banned from trading in real estate and securities at the request of the assets settlement committee.
After the new Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government took power, it pushed through the Act Governing the Handling of Ill-gotten Properties by Political Parties and Their Affiliate Organizations (政黨及其附隨組織不當取得財產處理條例), which led to the establishment of the assets settlement committee to handle the KMT’s alleged “ill-gotten” assets.
The committee was inaugurated on Aug. 31 and its first act was to freeze certain KMT bank accounts that the KMT said are mainly used to pay employees, pending an investigation.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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