Civil servants get too many retirement extras.

Wide and unreasonable disparities exist between the pension system for civil servants and that for corporate workers in Japan. A retired civil servant generally enjoys much bigger pension benefits and retirement entitlements than a retired private-sector worker with an equivalent pension status.

First, under the pension system for corporate employees, ``survivor'' pension payments of an employee who has died are terminated when the widow remarries or dies. The bereft children can receive the benefits only before their 18th birthday.

But under the retirement system for government employees, the parents, grandparents or grandchildren of the deceased are entitled to receive benefits after the widow and children lose their eligibility.

Secondly, a special extra is added to pension benefits for civil servants. A government employee who has retired on a full pension receives about 20,000 yen more every month than a private-sector pensioner who has paid the same amount of contributions. There has been no reasonable explanation for this.

The government has long characterized this extra as something similar to private pension benefits under company-operated programs. Unlike benefits for public workers, however, such private programs are generally funded by part of retirement allowances.

And a growing number of companies are reducing benefits or disbanding their own programs altogether due to underfunding. Consequently, the government has changed its explanation. It now says the extra is compensation for the strict work rules, confidentiality obligation and the ban of moonlighting imposed on government employees.

Thirdly, another addition for civil-service workers is subsidized by massive public money. This is a relic from the era when pensions for public servants were fully financed by the government under the so-called onkyu system.

The state-financed pension program for government employees was replaced by the current mutual aid program funded by premiums paid by individual workers about 40 years ago. At that time, a new arrangement for government subsidies to cover the benefits corresponding to the period of working under the onkyu system was established.

The subsidy program pays a staggering 2 trillion yen a year for the public employee pension system, roughly equal to the total contributions paid by all the self-employed workers covered by the national pension.

There is little incentive for public servants to revamp a system that favors them. But public debate on the issue has been provoked by Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Koichi Kato, who pointed to the problem during a Diet session.

While government employees are under fiducial obligation and a legal ban to strike, they are protected from the danger of bankruptcy or firing. Clearly, the extra addition to their pension benefits constitutes an unfair benefit. The generous survivors pension and the special extra are only possible because of the government subsidy.

In the face of growing criticism, the government only repeats that it has been operating the public pension system according to the law. This excuse is no longer acceptable.

The gap in pension benefits also serves as a big stumbling block to the proposed unification of pension programs for corporate and government employees, which should constitute a vital element of the fundamental overhaul the troubled retirement system badly needs.

The government decided three years ago to accelerate the process of debating and enacting such integration, but it has since made little progress.

Going against the vested interests of bureaucrats requires a firm political commitment to take charge and act. Belatedly, the LDP and its ruling coalition partner, New Komeito, have agreed to push ahead with consolidation of the two pension programs. A bipartisan debate on the proposal involving the opposition camp should be launched immediately as a first step toward a drastic overhaul.

The centerpiece of the pension reform should be integration of the pension programs for corporate-employed and self-employed workers. To expedite the effort toward that goal, redressing the pension disparities between the public and private sectors and unifying their separate pension programs are the tasks that cannot be left undone.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Dec. 22(IHT/Asahi: December 23,2004)