The motivation behind the government’s push for pension reform is fear that the pension system for public employees — military personnel, civil servants and public-school teachers — will break the nation’s finances, and that if the system is not changed now, the system will either go bankrupt or the fiscal burden of maintaining it will break the back of future generations.
This is a practical matter that must be resolved. However, top officials in the previous Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government in charge of the pension system highlighted another aspect of pension reform: If the nation is to be saved, the attitude of public employees must change.
At a meeting of the Association of Retired Public Servants, Teachers, Military and Police of the Republic of China on Thursday last week, KMT Evaluation and Discipline Committee chairman Chen Keng-chin (陳庚金), who is a former director-general of the Executive Yuan’s Central Personnel Administration, publicly called for civil servants to “goof around as much as possible and milk their jobs for all they are worth to drag down the government.”
His remarks were intended to encourage retirees to oppose pension reform, with KMT leaders at the meeting praising Chen’s address as being “full of emotion and meaning,” showing that this sentiment runs deep in the KMT.
Chen said that ongoing pension reform is a class struggle that is merely superficially about promoting equality. As he used to be in charge of the pension system for government personnel, he is one of the main people responsible for the system’s current forecast of 13 or 14 years until bankruptcy. Had the KMT not played up to public employees by offering pork barrel policies in exchange for votes, the nation would not have been in this situation, but those responsible for this disaster have instead been encouraging civil servants to “goof around.” What kind of attitude is this?
Retired generals have been calling for veterans to gather daily outside the Legislative Yuan, calling them the “800 Heroes.”
The original 800 Heroes were soldiers who resisted the Japanese occupation of Shanghai in 1937, while these people are vowing to fight to the death over a few dollars, calling on the government to maintain the pension system and ensure their pensions will remain untouched. If the original 800 Heroes could see this self-interest and “daring,” they would surely turn over in their graves.
According to a poll conducted by the Taiwan Thinktank, 67 percent of the general public supports pension reform, as do 64.6 percent of public employees, which is far greater than the support among students, which stands at 49.9 percent. Meanwhile, 94.8 percent of public employees worry that they will not receive a pension. This poll is clear evidence that the KMT’s leadership continues to be unable to connect with mainstream opinion and understand the general public’s hardships.
The KMT knows full well how serious the situation is. During former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) time in office, Ma and then-Examination Yuan president John Kuan (關中) said that unless the pension system were immediately reformed, “we will regret it tomorrow.”
Although the KMT then had full control of the government, it bowed to internal pressure and decided to postpone regret until tomorrow. Now that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has shown that she is not afraid of handling this hot potato, the KMT should at least refrain from unreasonable and irrational protests and troublemaking. For future generations, Chen’s statement is serving as a catalyst to push for reform.
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