The benefits of sharing
The Tribal Council, which is in charge of all matters large and small in Smangus, currently has nine departments, managing everything from tourism development, education and culture to the conservation of environmental resources. The jobs that are part of the daily routine for community members are assigned based on individual abilities and interests. To date, 80% of residents have joined the co-op, and perform all types of tasks including preparation of guest rooms, restaurant meals, guide services, and tending crops.
After 18 years of co-op activity, Smangus today, through a refined division of labor and integrated management of resources, has developed a tourism industry that brings in considerable income, enabling it to provide all kinds of welfare support to community members, thus achieving the goal of letting everyone live settled and contented lives. Not only have they resolved the problem of population outflow, which is common in Aboriginal communities, they have made it possible for tribe members who had left the village to return home to work.
Today, each co-op member receives a monthly salary of NT$20,000, regardless of what job they do. This is double the figure for 2004. A good welfare system further underpins the stability of residents’ lives, with all kinds of fees, including medical and educational, being borne by the collective. Lahuy Icyeh says that the amount of benefits paid out has grown over the years. For example, the monthly child-rearing subsidy given to households with children under two years old has increased from NT$1,000, when this benefit was introduced in 2007, to the current level of NT$4,000.
Of course, discipline is an important link in upholding the cooperative system. Lahuy Icyeh admits that there are still a small number of people in the community who have the mindset of eating from the communal pot without doing much work, so the need to set some rules appears inevitable. “For example, we don’t allow drinking alcohol while working, otherwise your annual bonus will be cut in half, or by even more if you do it again.” He emphasizes that last year’s annual bonus rose to NT$80,000. “We take the issue of drinking very seriously, and even spent NT$20,000 to buy breathalyzers, which we use for random tests.”
At a time when many people in Taiwan are unwilling to have children because of economic pressure, there is no such problem in well-managed Smangus. In this mountain village, each young couple has an average of three children, and at Hsin Kwang Elementary, the community’s only primary school, the roll has risen from ten students in six grades when the school was founded in 2004, to 24 today.