Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: 全教總/Facebook
PUBLIC SECTOR WORKERS, civil servants, and unions of state-owned enterprises demonstrated in late April to call for an increase in pay. This included groups that traditionally are not allowed to have unions, in that public sector workers are not allowed to unionize. This has been a matter of controversy in past years, particularly after deaths of firefighters that led to calls for firefighters being allowed to unionize.
Demonstrators called for a pay increase of 6,000 NT, as well as changes to be made to the Regulations for Overtime Pay of Government Agencies. Specifically, protesting workers criticized that pay increases for these groups have sometimes only increased “professional allowances” and not base salaries. Salary increases have not kept pace with rising costs, hence the call for a pay increase of 6,000 NT, which is around 6.67% of salaries. Likewise, amending the Regulations for Overtime Pay of Government Agencies is with the view that overtime pay is calculated based on workers’ full salaries, as well as that changes should be made to how pensions are currently calculated.
Among those who participated in the demonstrations were the unions of the Taiwan Railways, Chunghwa Post, and research institutions such as the NTU Cancer Center Union. A number of these institutions were originally run as part of the government, before being converted to state-tun enterprises. Workers have criticized protections as having weakened protections for workers. Consequently, a division also arises within the company where there are workers hired from before the reorganization into a state-owned enterprise and workers hired afterward, creating a two-track system of labor.
Like their private sector counterparts, however, it is the case that public sector workers only see wage increases on justifications such as increasing allowances and not base salaries. This is one way of avoiding pay increases, or providing the pretext for eventually dialing back wage increases. That a substantial part of pay comes from year-end bonuses further affects workers’ pay in a way that ultimately increases the power that employers have over workers.
It has been less common to see visible labor protests by public sector unions in past years, particularly as such groups do not have the legal basis to unionize. As teachers are technically public servants at many institutions, one hears more often of union activity in educational institutions. But this points to the many issues of labor law in Taiwan, in that historically teachers, public servants, police, members of the military, and firefighters were seen as their own social class, paid high pensions by the KMT in return for political loyalty. The composition of those employed in such occupations was usually waishengren. And though this may no longer be the case after democratization in many of these fields, it continues to be that these are groups treated different than other workers in the eyes of the law.