Wed, Jan 25, 2017 page3

• Tsai’s approval rating plunges to 33.8%

  • By Alison Hsiao / Staff reporter
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  Less than 35 percent of people approve of how the administration of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has been managing national affairs, including personnel appointments, while 49.3 percent said they have a bleak view of the government’s pension reform policies, according to the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation’s latest survey.

  Tsai’s approval rating has plunged to 33.8 percent compared with the 69.9 percent rating she had when she first took office, foundation chairman You Ying-lung (游盈隆) said yesterday.

  About 54.5 percent of those polled either “not quite approved” (35.1 percent) or “did not approve at all” (19.3 percent) of how Tsai is leading the nation, the poll showed.

  The Cabinet headed by Premier Lin Chuan (林全) is likewise unpopular, with only 27.2 percent of those questioned saying they were satisfied with its performance, while 60.6 percent are not satisfied, of which 22.5 percent were “very dissatisfied,” the poll showed.

  Asked about economic performance, 19.6 percent and 31.2 percent of respondents said they believe the economy would get better or remain the same this year respectively, while 8.6 percent and 46.5 percent said the economy was improving or unchanged from last year respectively.

  The poll showed that 30.6 percent of respondents said they were pleased with the government’s efforts to stimulate economic growth, but 60.4 percent were not.

  You said the public’s views on economic outlook should serve as a warning to the government, as the expectation would be that people would be bullish about the economy under a new ruling party following a major election, “but the numbers show otherwise.”

  However, Soochow University economics professor Tsaur Tien-wang (曹添旺) said the figures were “not promising, but not pessimistic either, as more people are looking forward to a better economy.”

  The poll also looked at the public’s views on pension reform and the “one fixed day off, one flexible rest day” policy.

  Nearly 14 percent of respondents said they are “very satisfied” with the administration pushing for pension reform, 32.4 percent said they are “quite satisfied,” while 23.8 percent said they are not so satisfied and 16.5 percent were “very dissatisfied,” the poll found.

  However, only 8.7 percent expressed “strong confidence” and 32.7 percent “some confidence” that the administration would deliver pension reform, while 28 percent said they are “not confident” and 21.3 percent said they have “no confidence at all.”

  Former Democratic Progressive Party legislator Chien Hsi-chieh (簡錫堦) said the focus of pension reform so far has been the reduction of preferential benefits for civil servants, public-school teachers and military personnel, lowering of the “sense of relative deprivation,” but the government should also reform the tax system.

  The government’s plan to raise the labor insurance premium to 18 percent would only “delay” the fund going bankrupt, Chien said.

  “Pension reform without accompanying tax reform is destined to fail,” Chien said.

  Chien also criticized the reform process, saying that inviting representatives of different interest groups to engage in mutual finger-pointing was a bad idea, citing Sweden in 1991 as an example in which political parties “shouldered the responsibility to thrash out a deal after separately consulting various interest groups.”

  You took the government to task for its “lack of belief,” saying that it should first put forward proposals rather than asking the public to do so and creating a chaotic sea of opinions.

  Asked about the amendment to the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) to change the workweek, 32.6 percent of respondents said they supported it, while 56.2 percent opposed it.

  National Chengchi University associate professor of law Lin Chia-ho (林佳和) said that although the policy seemed to have little support, “I want to cite a government official who claimed that if neither employers nor employees are supportive of the policy, then it is probably not that bad.”

  “Some employees are complaining that the policy has stopped them from making more money now they are forced to take days off, but Taiwanese need to shed the mentality that earning a good salary means working unreasonably long hours,” Lin said.

  “To encourage wage increases, the government should work to promote the fairer distribution of bonuses and secure workers’ right to form a union so that they have more negotiating power,” he added.

  The poll, conducted on Tuesday and Wednesday last week, collected 1,078 valid samples and it had a margin of error of 2.98 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level.
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