20110220 Volunteers allege dismissal politics

Volunteers allege dismissal politics

By Su Yung-yao / Staff Reporter
　

A letter of dismissal from the Presidential Office is shown in this picture taken yesterday.
Photo: Su Yung-yao, Taipei Times

A group of Presidential Office volunteer workers yesterday alleged the Presidential Office dismissed them because they harbored sympathies toward the pan-green camp.

Citing a “staff-member rearrangement,” the Presidential Office on Jan. 1 dismissed more than 30 volunteers, the largest-scale dismissal since the Presidential Office implemented the system of voluntary workers in October 2000 under the then-Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration. Some eyebrows were subsequently raised as to whether political motives were involved in the volunteers’ dismissals.

In response to the allegations, Presidential Office spokesman Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) yesterday said the dismissal had nothing to do with politics, but resulted from objective reviews of the overall volunteer workers’ performance.

Among the assessments taken in consideration were complaints filed by visitors over some volunteer tour guides’ attitudes and the quality of their services, the Presidential Office said.

The Presidential Office’s volunteer workers system falls under the jurisdiction of the Presidential Office’s Department of Public Affairs as well as three bureaus.

The three bureaus are tasked with handling the day-to-day affairs of the Presidential Office, with the First Bureau in charge of matters of law, while the Second Bureau files documents and maintains hardware. The Third Bureau deals with protocol, construction and transportation.

The dismissed volunteers alleged the Presidential Office was contradicting itself. They said they were dismissed on grounds of “staff member rearrangement,” but the Presidential Office’s Web site at the same time has continually posted recruitment ads for new volunteer workers, adding that the numbers recruited exceeded the numbers dismissed.

About 10 volunteer tour guides said they received notices in late December informing them of their dismissal effective last month. Meanwhile, others in charge of taking calls and mailing replies were told the same thing by the Department of Public Affairs.

To better manage these volunteer workers who do not belong to the civil service system, the Presidential Office has also taken new measures in which effective Jan. 1, all phone calls taken by voluntary workers were to be recorded. This had never happened under the former DPP administration, according to the volunteers, some of whom had worked as volunteers at the Presidential Office since 2000.

Saying that the ideology of their colleagues was obvious and that over time they tend to stick in groups during break time according to their political leanings, a volunteer worker said “that, however, did not interfere with our passion, or professional attitude, at work.”

Another volunteer described the volunteer workers system after the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) came back to power as a “red--envelope” culture.

“If you want to be a volunteer worker and want to avoid being classified among the ‘black categories’ with pan-green sympathies, you have to bribe your superiors,” he said.

A volunteer was very candid when asked why people wanted to bribe for a job without pay.

“They wanted a Presidential Office pass. They can park in the Presidential Office parking lot and even get ‘preferential treatment’ with the traffic police if they violate traffic laws,” the worker said.

As the Presidential Office was built during the Japanese colonial era, the volunteer tour guides’ duties often times involved explaining to visitors Taiwan’s history.

“The DPP government didn’t have any special requests. After President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was sworn in, however, there were specific instructions to ‘be cautious of what they said, to not speak ill of Ma and to not overtly praise the Japanese,’” said another worker, who wished to remain unidentified.

Some volunteers complained that in the past, the standard practice for handling suicide calls had been to only turn it over to their superiors, but since the Ma administration came to office, the volunteers now have to contact the social affairs bureaus in the caller’s vicinity themselves.

“We aren’t civil servants and this is like doing the work for superiors,” a volunteer worker said. “It’s very strange.”

They also said that once, Ma paid the volunteers a visit for photo ops and tea. A volunteer surnamed Liang (梁), who helped as a tour guide and call-taker, asked Ma how to respond when receiving queries from callers on whether the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) was unconstitutional as well as to issues pertaining to the controversial land-grab in Miaoli County last year.

According to those present, -Liang started out by saying he graduated from Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School and National Taiwan University, Ma’s alma maters.

However, Ma only answered the ECFA question before leaving. -Liang was later dismissed.