The ruling and opposition parties agreed late last year to overhaul the deficit-ridden pension plans for government workers. The accord led to the launch of a special parliamentary committee and an ad-hoc panel for pulling off a “grand social compromise” on the issue.

Under the agreement, the ad-hoc panel is to prepare its proposals on how to reform the pension system by March 28, and hand them over to the special parliamentary committee, which would be tasked with writing necessary bills by the end of April.

But after more than two months of operation, neither the “Body for Grand Compromise on Pension Reform” nor the parliamentary committee has made any strides in their discussions.

The primary blame for the slow progress goes to the government workers’ unions and the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy.

Unionists participating in the ad-hoc panel, in an apparent foot-dragging tactic, demand that the discussions should include other major pension schemes ― like those for veterans, teachers and the nonpublic sector.

It is not hard to see that the unionists are participating in the discussions in order to thwart a compromise, not to achieve one. That the government workers’ unions called for a large-scale street demonstration March 28, the due date for the panel to agree on its reform plans, is also seen as an attempt to put pressure on the government.

Moreover, the Korea Confederation of Trade Unions, the largest umbrella group of public employees’ unions, called for a general strike on April 24. One of their key demands is withdrawal of the government’s pension reform plan. All this slows that the unions never intend to make a compromise.

The NPAD cannot avoid criticism either, as it has yet to take on the issue seriously. It is simply incomprehensible that the party has not yet worked out its own proposal.

One cannot help but suspect that the opposition party does not want to antagonize the government workers’ unions ― its traditional support group ― by hurriedly joining the push for pay-more, receive-less reform. Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon’s recent remarks that their “pension is the only hope of civil servants who get small paychecks” and that “more time may be needed to reach a social consensus” certainly reflect what’s on the opposition’s mind.

Participants in the tripartite meeting of senior officials from the administration, ruling party and the Blue House reaffirmed Friday that they would complete the reform legislation by May 2. The problem is that they alone cannot achieve the goal of overhauling the pension scheme, which now loses 10 billion won each day.