Party Politics 101 - Taiwan Green Party: Practice What You Preach

In Taiwan, the main opposition party is the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).  It champions democracy and independence for Taiwan as well as a host of social policies that position it as the party of the blue collar worker, socially disadvantaged and, in more recent years, sexual progressives and environmentalists. Despite this, the party has plenty of critics within its ranks at how the leadership and internal structure of the party are often less than democratic, and plenty of external critics who say its environmental and gender politics, amongst others, are PR gestures rather than being central to the party's platform.

The governing Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) also claims to be a party of democracy and human rights. It's a party that, like the DPP, is run on a leninist structure.  When that is mixed with a potent brew of factionalism and guanxi, the latter (in tandem with the need to save face) of which exerts a great influence on decision making at critical times when the messy business of practicing democracy and protecting human rights is an inconvenience to the achievement of party goals (which is pretty much most of the time).  Too often, the party charters of the KMT and DPP are pretty words rather than substantive and imperative rules for the behaviour of the parties and their members.

So too, the Taiwan Green Party.

On Saturday, the TGP held very important meetings to discuss the reorganisation of the party and to elect new convenors and a new supervisory committee.  The last seven months have been a very busy period for TGP in which they have hosted the 2010 Asia Pacific Greens Network conference and run five candidates in the Taipei City Council elections (in which four saw their deposits returned, the TGP's best ever election results).

In the last two months the party has focussed on internal reorganisation.  Party leadership are facing a new, and tougher, financial situation yet have made plans to actually increase the number of employees.  However, their plans for expansion of the payroll have been proposed without presenting a clear plan of how the party will generate a corresponding increase in income to cover the extra employee costs.

This has caused some concern with some of the TGP employees.  They have questioned how and whether their jobs can continue after the reorganisation takes effect.  I can attest that most TGP employees are hardworking and dedicated to the issues the TGP champions.  They work long hours, and often weekends, and have been the less visible backbone of TGP internal organisation, and the necessary bureaucracy that comes with running any form of organisation.

The TGP leadership's reluctance to clarify the employment status of some of these administrative members has exposed both a lack of respect for its employee's legal rights to notice of redundancy or the modification of an existing contract, and a lack of planning, and knowledge of due process, by senior executive members.  In some instances, employees are working without written contracts, a practice widely prevalent in Taiwanese companies.

TGP's Charter is essentially a direct copy of the the Global Greens Charter 2001.  In that document it states the following:

5.9 Will work to require corporations to abide by the environmental, labour and social laws of their own country and of the country in which they are operating, whichever are the more stringent 

6.13 Uphold the right of all workers to safe, fairly remunerated employment, with the freedom to unionise.

None of the above clauses directly refer to the issues faced by TGP junior employees.  The TGP Charter does not explicitly state that its own employees shall enjoy which specific rights but it does concern itself with the actions of corporations. Should not political parties also abide by the environmental, labour and social laws of their own country? Are they exempt?  Is this an omission in the Global Greens Charter or was it taken for granted at the time of writing that the values expressed would automatically include the organisation and internal values of the party?  

The TGP has made some elemental mistakes here:

1. It did not provide written contracts with specific terms for all of its employees.
2. Upon request, it has failed to clarify the status of employment within a reasonable period of time which would allow employees to make an informed decision about their future employment within the TGP.
3. It has not taken action to give 1 month's notice to employees that their status and contracts will change, and has only entered into tentative discussions only a week before the reorganisation meetings.  

If you wish corporations to treat their workers well, you might start by making how you treat your workforce an example to emulate.  Citing lack of time, resources or answers for why employees are being left in the dark and lack job security is not a tenable excuse for a political party which is seeking to convince others of the need to protect labour rights.  The TGP is not hypocritical.  It has not acted out of malicious intent nor sought to deprive its employees of their rights.  It has just failed by virtue of always being too busy, and too financially weak, to take care of the smaller details.  It is guilty of 'making do for the moment', and in the process has sent a message that providing workers with a clear, detailed, fair and transparent employment structure is an inconvenience unaffordable until a later date.

I hope that the TGP, post reorganisation, will take active steps to draw up written contracts for all employees, detailing time span, renumeration and responsibilities.  If it continues in the same manner as it has recently, it could well continue to see talent within the ranks depart for more organised and respectful employment opportunities.  Finally, speaking of respectful, the Global Greens Charter also says that ...

We promote the building of respectful, positive and responsible relationships across lines of division in the spirit of a multi-cultural society.  

I like the idea of 'building of respectful, positive and responsible relationships'.  I think that in any workplace managers and senior staff have the necessity to enable and facilitate an environment in which those kind of relationships flourish.  If managers and senior staff verbally abuse an employee, out of frustration or because they imagine the employee to be deliberately uncooperative, they are achieving the direct opposite of the Charter's goals and are instead building an environment of fear and resentment.  It is NEVER appropriate to curse someone in a working environment, especially when people not in the TGP are present.  What kind of impression does that give about the values of the leadership?  What does that say about a person's tolerance, patience, compassion or empathy?  What does it say about that person's party?

TGP Rule No. 1: Check your ego at the door.
TGP Rule No. 2: NEVER verbally abuse the people that hold your organisation together.
TGP Rule No. 3. If you lose your temper, take a time out and then apologise to those you have offended.

This should be obvious.  TGP: I support your goals and your Charter but you've got to practice what you preach.

Footnote:
No-one asked me to write this post.  In fact I was specifically asked not to but I was disinclined to acquiesce to the request.  I have supported and helped the TGP in the past year and will be happy to do so in the future if I can be sure that the party is able to operate and stand by its own values.  I write this post as a heads up to the TGP's senior members in the hope that they can reflect on what has gone wrong and get it right in the future.  Taiwan needs the TGP.