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14 June, 2010
The Taiwan Electric Power Labour Union (TPLU) has been protesting in Taipei for clarification of their pension status. Some 6,000 members of the ICEM affiliate, working at several water and electric enterprises, turned out 2 June at the Legislative Yuan to manifest and then to march.
Under current law, workers at the enterprises are considered neither workers nor civil servants, meaning their pension pay-outs are miniscule, not paid out in monthly installments, their retirement earnings are not covered by a state-legislated pension insurance programme, and they are without the preferred interest rate on pension savings accounts.
TPLU Members Marching on 2 June
Under three classifications of work in Taiwan, employees are classified as civil servants, workers, or civil servants and workers. Public sector engineers and administrators, for example, have the latter classification, which grants them more in terms of pension benefits and better regulated retirement schemes.
But workers at Taipei Power Company (Taipower) and water and other enterprises are considered neither workers nor civil servants, meaning they have the advantages of nether and bear the disadvantages of both.
We are orphans under a system that does not recognise our rights and does not provide any safeguards, said a TPLU spokesperson close to President Guo-Kang Hu. TPLU wants lawmakers and the Ministry of Economic Affairs to amend the provisions of the “State-Run Enterprise Administrative Act” that better reflects a high court ruling in 1990 that sets forth details on retirement and retirement benefits.
Taipower management supports the workers demands and has laid out three schemes that would correct the legal status. The ICEM also has endorsed TPLU’s campaign to achieve fairness and a sense of balance into Taiwanese pension schemes.