ivansamigno

Chou 翻譯公司 whose own family includes retired civil servants was initially asked why he wanted to involve himself in the issue.

A main area of contention has been the pace of which reforms are to take place. For example, Lin fears that the gradual pace proposed by the government may not translate into a sustainable system 翻譯公司 describing it as a temporary solution at best.

Lin called on the new government to not only tackle pension reform but change the culture of the public bureaucracy.

The challenge for those advocating reform has been building a consensus among civil servants

For him, it was a culture that was making the system unaccountable to the public 翻譯公司 inefficient, unresponsive to social needs and at the mercy of political appointees. This desire by younger members of the civil service to reform from within gave way to the formation of the TCSIC.

In January, the Alliance for Monitoring Pension Reforms, made up of retired and working public servants as well as teachers and military veterans 翻譯公司 staged a massive rally as social groups and government representatives concluded a pension reform conference seeking to draw consensus on key points 翻譯公司 including lowering the income replacement ratio and phasing out the controversial 18 percent preferential savings rate.

"While they can't agree completely with our position 翻譯公司 when I explain our predicament of high contribution rates, delayed retirement age and the looming threat of bankruptcy, they can start to at least sympathize with our dilemma." Chou added that he was surprised when older superiors showed support and encouragement for the group's mission to institute changes from within.

Politicians in the past balked at diffusing the crisis, aware their policy choices could very well blow up in their face.

For Lin, however, that process has been fraught with incidents of personal attacks.

Finding Middle Ground

The Elephant in the Room

Galvanized by Lin's open letter to the Tsai administration, Chou later became the organizations' spokesman for government-held discussion panels on pension reform.

He said that following a recording of a televised debate on a political commentary show, Lee Lai-hsi (李來希), a prominent critic of pension reform, called him an idiot (Lin said he responded by calling Lee "very smart for having manipulated public opinion").

"Traditionally, the only thing demanded of civil servants was that they follow orders. But we think that new modes of politics should be more bottom up in order to benefit the system as a whole. The TCSIC provides civil servants the space for policy discussions, skills training and a channel for voicing their opinions," Lin told The China Post.

Faced with impending bankruptcy, the issue of propping up the convoluted funds has been framed across party lines as a ticking time bomb.

Since the Democratic Progressive Party swept into power last May, President Tsai Ing-wen has made reforming Taiwan's archaic pension system a government priority.

In TCSIC's first press conference in January, many members wore surgical masks out of fear of being identified and targeted at work.

"I'm 32 now and will be 45 or 46 when the pension funds are predicted to run dry. Right now, NT$3,000 is being deducted from my salary every month to pay into the pension fund. Unless something changes I basically won't be seeing any of the money I'm putting in right now," he said during a telephone interview.

The group say they want to make policymaking more transparent and streamlined, moving away from bureaucracy for bureaucracy's sake.

He said he found it surprising how the "relatively well-educated civil servant cohort does not have the good judgment to stand up to fake news or rumors."

▲圖／翻攝自中國郵報

Chou Hsin (周鑫) 翻譯公司 a civil servant in Chiayi City, said he only jumped on the issue when he saw the government's own actuary reports predicting that the whole public sector pension system would be bankrupt in 2031.

Members of the TCSIC have powered their message of questioning business as usual in the public sector through social media.

"There are deliberate moves by some to frame this as a 'political stocktaking against civil servants' in order to frame this as an ideological issue involving the pan green and pan blues. This has transformed an issue about systemic problems into a war of words."

One video clip published on Facebook outlines the convoluted and closed-off process of policymaking.

Whereas older civil servants and retirees rally easily to the call of resisting cuts to their benefits, for many young people, the pension issue seems like a distant problem full of obtrusive technical terms and legalese.

Lin said in an op-ed last month he was being monitored and vetted by an internal agency due to his participation in TCSIC.

In the video 翻譯公司 the inefficiencies of the public policy process are assessed from day one 翻譯公司 when isolated groups formulate policy based on their own internal discussions. By the time the policy has been finalized and outsiders 翻譯公司 including the media, find out about its deficiencies 翻譯公司 the group is forced to push through an alternative that is still unconvincing. The short clip ends by asking: "Everybody sees the problem with this: what can be done to save the government?"

But Lin and like-minded members of the bureaucracy face an uphill task in mobilizing support among both colleagues and the public.

TAIPEI 翻譯公司 Taiwan -- No recent social issue has better demonstrated the fracturing potential of Taiwan's economic woes, its looming demographic crisis and its generational divide than that of pension reform.