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CAUGHT IN A NETWORK?：A professor has questioned a decision
by the agency to boost salaries for some workers with 2014 seven-in-one local
elections on the horizon
By
Chung Li-hua and Jake Chung /
Staff reporter, with Staff writer Tue,
Jul 24, 2012 - Page 4 An academic has raised questions
over the Fisheries Agency’s move to increase the wages of Taiwan Provincial
Fishermen’s Association officers and staff, saying it may be politically
motivated, with the seven-in-one local government elections, set for 2014,
looming on the horizon. The agency last week announced
changes to the Act on Managing Personnel for Fishermen Association (漁會人事管理辦法),
which raised the cap on the “salary point system” from NT$500 to NT$600 per
point and also raised the internal rankings for general executive officers
and secretaries. The salary point system awards workers based on their contribution to their unit and is
intended to be a more flexible allocation of wages and to serve as an
incentive for workers to work harder. However, National Dong Hua University professor Shih Cheng-feng
(施正鋒) said the government’s decision to raise the salaries of the association staff
and its timing were suspicious. The seven-in-one
elections will be held in 2014 for all directly elected local government
positions: special municipality mayors and councilors, county commissioners,
city mayors, county/city councilors, township chiefs and councilors and
borough wardens/village chiefs. Although the government
does not directly pay the salaries of association staff, the association is
usually commissioned to handle subsidies granted by the agency and the
Council of Agriculture, Shih said. On the surface, this
would seem to ease the manpower and financial burden on the government, Shih
said, but it is simply a way of dodging the supervision of the legislature. Top-tier association
staff were previously required to receive a performance rating of A+ or A for three consecutive years to be promoted in
rank, which is commensurate with an increase in salary. However, following
the act’s revision, internal rankings for all executive officers were
automatically changed from second rank to first, while those for secretaries
were changed from fourth to third, Shih said. The jump in rank is equivalent
to a NT$3,200 to NT$4,800 increase in salary, Shih said. As for the salary point
system, the average rate was about NT$400 per point, as the different
branches of the association adopted different rates, Shih said. Almost a third of the
association’s branches nationwide adopted the highest pay possible, which was
NT$500 per salary point, sources said. With this pay rate being raised to
NT$600, it would mean that the most “junior” of janitors would receive a
salary increase of NT$6,200 per month while the most “senior” general
executive officer would receive an additional NT$10,620 per month, Shih said. Farmers’ and fishermen’s
associations, along with the Taiwan Joint Irrigation Association, have long
been viewed by the opposition party as voting powerhouses for the Chinese
Nationalist Party (KMT), Shih said, adding that even when the Democratic
Progressive Party was in power, it found it hard to get these associations on
their side. With the association holding
its general elections next year, the timing of the pay raise is just right,
Shih said. If the raise came too
early, it would have been forgotten come election time and if it were too
close to the elections, then there would be finger-pointing alluding to
unfair voting, Shih said. Chen Kuang-nan
(陳光男), a former role-model fisherman, said that if the
association had the money to burn by raising the salary of its staff, it
should have used it instead to help fishermen who are struggling due to the
hard times they are having to endure within the industry. Yields of offshore fishing has
decreased by 50 percent in the past three decades, Chen said, adding that
fishermen used to sell a boatload of fish for NT$4,000 to NT$5,000, but now
struggle to make a few hundred dollars from the average catch. Chen-Li Task Force for Agricultural
Reform chief executive Du Yu (杜宇) said the fishermen’s association should pay its staff based on their
productivity instead of following the example of the farmers’ association. * 《Taipei Times》2012/07/24。
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