Just ask any Korean on the street what they associate with politicians: he or she will say “brazen-faced” and “liars.” Indeed, they have more than sufficient reasons to think so.
Members of the 19th National Assembly are receiving as much as 20 percent higher pay than their predecessors, it was belatedly learned through a “slip of tongue” by the ruling party’s whip. However, no less surprising than the hefty pay increase is the perfect silence maintained by the 300 lawmakers for nearly eight months.
They must have thought voters need not ― or should not ― know about it. These were the same legislators who called for government employees to curb pay raises and for any increase to be conducted with absolute transparency. Even perennial partisan bickering was put aside to line their own pockets.
Korean lawmakers receive about 150 million won ($132,000) a year. This seems small when compared to the $174,000 their U.S. counterparts get. But when taking into consideration that the U.S. per capita income is more than double that of Korea’s, the legislators’ salary is 1.5 times bigger here than across the Pacific. It is also double that of French lawmakers in absolute comparison, and quadruple the latter in relative terms.
No Koreans think that the “productivity” of their representatives is four times higher than their French counterparts. If anything, it is the other way round. Add to this the hefty state subsidies allocated to maintain nine assistants compared with two in the European country, which also has a strong presidential system. Still the Assembly chambers, especially those not telecast live are often half filled at best. When some senior politicians called for applying “no-work, no-pay” rule on parliamentarians last year, most of them opposed this.
The lawmakers reply that they visit their constituencies and prepare legislation when they are not at the Assembly, just as college professors conduct research when not lecturing. Voters know that is only half the story. Most lawmakers are busy attending factional meetings most of the time especially in an election year like this. Moreover, professors are given red cards through annual performance screening, while lawmakers, once elected, are free from job insecurity for four years unless they commit grave violations, thanks to the immunity from arrest privilege granted to them.
Whoever said government employees have the strongest guarantee of provision must substitute that group with lawmakers. Little wonder that a recent survey found almost 80 percent of respondents call for a sharp reduction or even abolishment of pay for lawmakers. The selfishness of Korean legislators, which pushed up their salaries by 16 percent from 2011 under the pretext of freezing it for a year or two, is comparable with behavior of their Japanese counterparts, who cut their salaries by 14 percent. In contrast, the nation’s minimum wage rose 6 percent this year to $4 per hour, while the average pay hikes of workers stood at 5 percent.
The 19th National Assembly must nullify the pay hikes and freeze lawmaker’s salaries to last year’s level at least, not to make their lip service for sharing the current economic pain sound more hollow. It also should introduce a rule that links pay hikes to the rate of inflation or other objective and transparent criteria.
Or, awaiting them will be a national recall movement of all the 300 lawmakers.