Wednesday, June 29, 2016

China starts to shift social insurance burden from employers to workers

China starts to shift social insurance burden from employers to workers

China’s Social Insurance Law (社会保险法), which went into effect five years ago on 1 July 2011, was supposed to create a comprehensive social insurance system in which the responsibilities of employees, employers and the government were clearly spelled out.
However, the majority of employers simply ignored their legal obligations to provide employees with a basic pension, unemployment, medical, work-related injury and maternity insurance. Local government officials, likewise, ignored their obligation to enforce the law, leaving hundreds of millions of workers without an effective social welfare safety net.
Now, there is growing evidence that China’s increasingly pro-business government is looking to place the burden of social security firmly on to the shoulders of workers and individual citizens and gradually reduce the limited burden currently carried by employers.
The government’s own figures (2015年度人力资源和社会保障事业发展统计公报) show that in 2015, only 262 million workers, about one third of China’s total workforce of around 775 million, actually had a basic pension, while only 213 million workers had basic medical insurance provided by their employer.
By contrast, there are currently 357 million working age people with a government-backed pension that does not require employer contributions. The urban and rural resident basic pension (城乡居民基本养老保险), created by the merger of rural and urban resident pension schemes in 2014, relies solely on individual contributions from residents backed by limited government subsidies. So while a lot more people may appear to be covered, the absence of employer contributions means that the benefits accrued are token at best. Indeed, official figures show that the average pay-out for the 148 million people receiving pension benefits from the urban and rural resident scheme in 2015 was just 1,432 yuan for the whole year. The average annual pay-out to the 91 million retirees with a basic urban pension contributed to by their employer, on the other hand, was about 20 times higher, standing at 28,363 yuan in 2015.
Responsibility for medical insurance likewise is gradually shifting away from employers towards individual citizens. In 2010, for example, 178 million workers had basic medical insurance from their employer, while 195 million people were covered by the urban resident medical insurance scheme. Five years later in 2015, the number of workers covered by their employer had risen by about 20 percent to 213 million. In the same period however, the number of people covered by the urban resident medical insurance scheme had nearly doubled to reach 377 million.
Unemployment, work-related injury and maternity insurance for employees are obviously tied to the workplace and, as of yet, there are no alternative urban resident-based schemes. There is a proposal to eventually merge maternity insurance with the basic medical insurance scheme but no detailed plans have been published yet.
Social insurance coverage for employees and working age residents in 2015 (millions)
* The figure for resident medical insurance scheme includes those over the retirement age
In addition to emphasizing resident insurance schemes at the expense of employee/employer schemes, the government is gradually chipping away at the insurance contributions employers have to make under existing laws and regulations. A notice jointly issued on 14 April this year by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and the Ministry of Finance (人力资源社会保障部 财政部关于阶段性降低社会保险费率的通知) stressed the need to gradually reduce social insurance contribution rates across the board, with the greatest reductions reserved for the employer. The Notice states explicitly that the measures are aimed at “reducing costs for enterprises and enhancing their vitality.” Several provinces and cities, including Beijing, have already started to reduce employer pension contributionsby one percent from 20 percent to 19 percent. This follows a similar one percent reduction in contributions to unemployment insurance earlier in the year.
CLB’s newly revised and updated introduction to China’s social security system argues that the Chinese government should not reform the system just to make life easier for employers; social insurance is too important for such short-sighted measures. Instead, the government needs to find a way to accommodate the competing interests of labour and capital in creating a realistic and stable social security system; one that looks after workers during poor health and old age but also helps to create a content and well-paid workforce that in turn can help develop the domestic economy through greater innovation, productivity and consumption of goods and services.

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

My Opinion: On Tiananmen anniversary, Tsai calls for political rights

Editor's Note: After the neo-liberal west entered China economically after Deng Xiao-Ping modified socialist ideals to foster faster growth by cooperating with capitalist exploitative ideals failed, so did China let in western ideals of false liberty and "freedom of speech." 

We now know what a lie this "free speech" is thanks to the Erik Snowden and other whistle blowers, the sham elections of the Bushes, and the joke which is Hillary Clinton's obstruction of the public will in demanding real economic change in the U.S. Capitalism cannot be reformed. 

The absurdity of one neo-liberal ruse in Taiwan supporting the attack on socialism in Tienanmen begs the questions:

* Why doesn't Taiwan give its workers better working conditions if their democracy is so much better for the people than China's central planning? 

*Why has the average wage of coastal Chinese workers almost approached and, in some cases, passed wages of workers in "free China? 

*Why have the wages in Taiwan been at a seventeen year stand-still, through an equal amount of KMT and DPP administration while Chinese workers wages have soared so much? 

*Why can workers in China dare to stage strikes and close down their expoliative workplaces but Taiwanese workers hardly ever dare improve their working conditions by striking?


 Foreign investers, from Taiwan, the U.S., Japan, and elsewhere are fleeing China for poorer nations to exploit the slave wage earners there. China is not cheap enough anymore for them. 

Let Tsai Ying-Wen concentrate on improving the lot of Taiwan workers and not be a mouthpiece for failed U.S. influence in Taiwan. Otherwise, soon enough, those sweatshops that fled China might soon be returning to cheaper Taiwan.  



On Tiananmen anniversary, Tsai calls for political rights

Staff writer, with CNA
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) urged Beijing to treasure Chinese who seek democracy, saying it can earn more respect from other nations by allowing its public to enjoy more political rights, on the 27th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre yesterday.
Publishing a message on her personal Facebook page, Tsai said she did not mean to criticize China’s political system, “but rather I am willing, with heartfelt sincerity, to share Taiwan’s experience in democratization.”
These were Tsai’s first comments about the 1989 massacre as the president of Taiwan after she took office on May 20.
“Democracy will not fall from the sky,” Tsai said. “The universal values of democracy and human rights are something that is fought for and won by the people.”
Tsai recognized China’s economic progress and the improvement in the Chinese quality of life, which she attributed to the efforts made by “the ruling party on the other side of the strait.”
However, she said it is undeniable that China is facing pressure to reform.
“If the other side of the strait can give more rights to people on the Chinese mainland, it will earn more respect from around the world,” she added.
She also called on China to treasure those who seek democracy, saying that they are likely to be the ones who will move China forward.
Only “the ruling party on the other side of the strait” can heal the past wounds of Chinese, she said.
“My responsibility is to protect the democracy and freedom enjoyed by Taiwanese and create peaceful, stable, consistent and predictable cross-strait relations,” Tsai said.
“Hopefully, one day, the views of both sides on democracy and human rights will converge,” she added.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who stepped down two weeks ago, also yesterday made remarks about the massacre, where Chinese soldiers and tanks fired on civilians in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square after weeks of pro-democracy protests. Estimates of the death toll range from several hundred to thousands.
In a post on his Facebook page, Ma urged China to hear the diverse voices of the public and treat dissidents well, which he said would help Beijing win respect from people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait and the international community.
Ma said that China would earn more respect from the world by “redressing the June 4 incident.”