The Taiwan Confederation of Trade Unions (TCTU) said Monday it plans to organize a street rally on May 1 to protest what it calls the "obviously inequitable distribution of wealth in the country."

"We will mobilize at least 10,000 members to take to the streets on May Day to protest declines in real wages," TCTU Secretary-General Hsieh Chuang-chih said at a news conference.

Citing figures from the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, Hsieh said the average monthly wage of employed individuals was NT$42,509 ($1,303.96) in 2009, but the real, or inflation-adjusted, wage was only NT$40,690, lower than the NT$41,874 recorded in 2000.

Even though Taiwan's gross domestic product (GDP) contracted last year because of the global financial crisis, Hsieh said, the island still posted a 30 percent growth in GDP over the past decade.

"The decline in real wages indicates that the benefits of our economic growth have all been taken by capitalists," Hsieh said.

Worse still, he added, 70 percent of Taiwan's tax revenues come from wage earners, a phenomenon that has exacerbated inequitable income distribution in local society.

Dubbing the May 1 demonstration as an anti-poverty march, Hsieh said the federation will highlight four appeals - fighting poverty and forbidding dispatched work, labor union autonomy, labor participation in and democratic supervision of ECFA, and allowing all wage earners to receive monthly pensions.

Hsieh said the confederation has asked all of its member groups to begin preparations for the May 1 Labor Day demonstration.

China Daily/CNA

(HK Edition 04/13/2010 page3)