The Alliance for Monitoring Pension Reform, a coalition of retired and active-duty military personnel, retired civil servants and public-school teachers, is to disband today because it has accomplished its mission, convener Huang Yao-nan (黃耀南) said yesterday.
The legislature on June 29 passed the Act Governing the Retirement and Pensions of Public-School Teachers and Employees (公立學校教職員退休撫卹條例), part of the government’s efforts to overhaul the nation’s pension systems.
The legislation, which is to take effect on July 1 next year, pushes back the retirement age for government employees and public-school teachers from 50 to 58 and conditionally phases out the 18 percent preferential interest rate for savings accounts of those teachers hired before July 1995, among others.
Retired teachers who joined the pension scheme before July 1995 and who opted to receive monthly pension payments will no longer receive the preferential interest rate from the end of 2020.
Immediately following the bill’s passage, Huang said the Democratic Progressive Party caucus was “butchering” teachers.
He said yesterday that the dissolution of the alliance would be formally announded today, but he vowed to continue the fight for teachers’ pension rights in his role as National Federation of Teachers’ Unions director-general.
Asked whether the decision was made after pension reform protesters disrupted the opening ceremony of the Taipei Summer Universiade on Aug. 19, he said the two events were not unrelated.
In other news, National Civil Servant Association director Harry Lee (李來希) yesterday said he planned to establish a new alliance, the membership of which would not be limited to retired and serving military personnel, public servants or teachers.
The group is to also address a broader range of issues, such as protecting the rights of civic groups, including those opposed to same-sex marriage, he said.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai