My friend's mother is extremely worried about her soon-to-be-retired status. Unlike some Chinese in their early 50s, she does not worry about how she will cope with life without going to work - she has already been unemployed for more than four years from a State-owned enterprise (SOE). What makes her uneasy is the security of her pension, owed by her employer in Xi'an, of West China's Shaanxi Province.

Due to its bad financial performance, the SOE stopped paying out pensions for all its employees a year ago. The national policy for social welfare goes like this: both the employee and the employer pay for half of the personal pension monthly, with the account to be used after the employee's retirement. My friend's mother has kept paying her part out of her small allowance for laid-off workers, hoping she may thus ensure a steady income from her pension account after retirement. However, when she began taking care of her retirement plan, she was shocked to find the SOE is not fulfilling its duty.

She went to the local pension bureau to ask how to secure her welfare after retirement. Since the enterprise is not performing, she does not expect it to resume its payments. She has tried to pay the discrepancy of some 1,000 yuan (US$122) by herself. But to her great surprise, the bureau did not accept the offer. They explained: "We cannot do this just for your case. If you want to pay the discrepancy, pay for all of the enterprise's 200 employees."

This is outrageous! Anyone with a conscience would be indignant. Should the individual employee be blamed for the misconduct of the employer? Given that her account is not fully paid up, where will her money come from if she is deprived of her pension? The government stipulates that all enterprises should resume such payments. If her enterprise cannot do this, why is it still operating and adding to its debts?

My friend showed me his mother's recent letter, written in tears:

"I had been working for this enterprise for more than 30 years, being underpaid all the time, with the promise that the company was going to take care of my life till the grave. All of a sudden, I was laid off with a minimum allowance. And now, my pension will be gone, too. Where is the value I created when I was working? The enterprise, or the government, retained the reserves, promising to pay me back with welfare in return. And now, the system is being reformed, which I don't have any opposition to. I'm retiring and facing the possibility of no pension at all. I want to ask: Who's going to take care of me?"

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