Nearly 99 percent of public workers who took part in a vote organized by their union opposed a government move to scale back their pension program, a task force said Tuesday.
Announcing the final result of the vote, the task force composed of some 50 organizations for public officials said 98.7 percent of the 576,865 civil servants who participated voted against the reform bill.
On Oct. 28, the ruling Saenuri Party revealed a draft bill that would start requiring public workers to pay more into the public pension system and see them receive less pension from 2016, without collecting opinions from civil servants.
The bill is part of a government plan to cut its growing pension deficit, which is forecast to reach 484 trillion won ($458 billion) if left unaddressed.
Government workers, however, have rejected the proposal, saying they have tolerated low pay for the promise of high returns after retirement.
Led by the Confederation of Korean Government Employees’ Unions, a union of public workers, the vote took place from Nov. 5-16. The 576,865 people who voted accounted for 72.4 percent of all civil servants eligible for the ballot, not including police officers, firefighters and tax officials.
Only 0.94 percent voted in favor of the bill, while 0.36 percent of the votes cast were declared invalid, according to the task force.
“This means a death sentence for the Saenuri Party’s pension reform bill,” the task force said during a news conference in front of the party headquarters in Seoul. “The party should withdraw the reform bill and form a pan-national body to improve the current pension system, humbly accepting opinions of civil servants,” it said.
It, however, backed down from its earlier position to consider launching a strike and a campaign to oust the Park Geun-hye administration if the reform bill is not withdrawn,
“As the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy clearly shows its position against the Saenuri’s move to bulldoze the bill through the parliament, we’re in the middle of readjusting the level of our future struggle against it,” the group said, adding that it will decide its future path during a leadership meeting later in the day.
Earlier on Tuesday, Prime Minister Chung Hong-won instructed Cabinet ministers to try to better communicate with government officials so they can understand the need to reform the pension system.
“Participation and support from public officials are the most important to successfully push for pension reform,” Chung told a weekly Cabinet meeting. (Yonhap)
