The National Assembly passed the civil service pension reform bill in the early hours of Friday morning after extending the extra parliamentary session, which was originally set to end Thursday. The bill passed 233-0 with 13 abstentions, seven months after it was first proposed.

The reform bill calls for increasing the government employees’ current contribution of 7 percent of their income to the pension scheme to 9 percent over the next five years while reducing the amount they receive from the current 1.9 percent to 1.7 percent over the next 20 years. Civil servants will pay more and receive less pension under the new scheme, which experts forecast will result in 33.3 trillion won in savings over the next 70 years.

The age at which retired civil servants start receiving pension payments will be pushed back incrementally starting in 2021, when the age at which payments start will be raised to 61, until 2033 when the age will be 65.

The reform bill passed Friday marks the fourth reform of the civil service pension scheme that came to being in 1982. The last overhaul took place at the end of 2009.

With the growing fiscal burden due to the fast-aging population, a reform of the civil service pension was an urgent matter. The government warned that unless changes were made by early May, it would have to use 10 billion won in taxpayer money every day starting next year to make up for the deficit stemming from the civil service pension scheme.

In passing the much-needed civil service pension reform bill, the ruling Saenuri Party and the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy showed that it was possible to work out compromises. The passage of the civil service pension bill was nearly scuttled as the NPAD insisted on a revision to the National Assembly law that would allow the legislative body to request revisions and changes to enforcement ordinances. The move was aimed at paving the way for a revision of the controversial enforcement ordinance concerning the Sewol Special Law.

The debate over the matter threatened to kill the civil service pension reform until the floor leaders of the two rival parties signed a tentative agreement Thursday. The Blue House and some members of the ruling Saenuri Party raised strong objections to the National Assembly law revision, arguing that it was unconstitutional, but the agreement hammered out in the afternoon was maintained and the pension reform bill was finally put to a vote in the wee hours of the morning. Some 60 other bills were also put to a vote.

The National Assembly should be commended for negotiating, compromising and ultimately passing the much needed reform of the civil service pension scheme. This case should spur more of such by lawmakers and political parties so that politics in Korea can become more of a win-win game rather than the zero-sum game that Koreans have had to endure for a very long time.