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The delegation consists of FKTU First Vice-President Yoo Jae-Sup, Executive Secretariat Director Choi In-Baek, and President Kim Ju-Young of the Korea Electricity Union. Through their visit to the United States, the FKTU delegates will stress that “foreign investment must be done in a productive way to contribute to job-creation, and must not be a means of speculation. Companies investing in Korea should comply with international labor standards to build reasonable labor-management relations.”
The FKTU described its delegation as “an effort to fulfill its duty as a responsible organization, while leading the struggle for workers’ rights as well as for political, economic and social reform.” It explained that “the decision was made under the perception that the Federation should take a leading role in activating the economy and creating jobs through the attraction of healthy industrial capital, rather than multinational speculative capital.
Since the inauguration of the Lee Yong-Deuk presidency last year, the FKTU has engaged in activities to attract investment from overseas in cooperation with KOTRA and Invest Korea. As part of this effort, it sent delegations to the U.S. in the latter half of 2004 to promote investment in the automobile part industry, and to a road show in Europe in April 2005. The FKTU has also took part in numerous lectures and meetings for CEOs of foreign companies operating in Korea in order to eradicate negative perceptions of industrial relations in Korea.
Employers Refuse to Return to Discussions on the Non-Regular Workers’ Bill
As employers declared that they refuse to return to discussions on the Bill on Non-Regular Workers, blaming labor’s reluctance to cooperate, labor representatives have expressed strong criticism. Thus, it remains uncertain whether the non-regular workers’ protection bill will be passed in the National Assembly’s Extraordinary Session in June 2005.
On May 17, Vice President Kim Young-Bae of the Korean Employers’ Federation (KEF) said in a press conference following a meeting with personnel and human resources executives from enterprises that “employers would return to the discussion on the non-regular workers’ bill under the condition that the issue of easing rigidity in employing regular workers was also dealt with in the discussion.” Kim also claimed that “if flexibility was increased in the employment of regular workers, many issues concerning increased employment of non-regular workers and improvement of treatment could be solved automatically. Solving the rigidity of regular employment, such as de facto employment-for-life and restrictions on transferring employees, was in fact a fundamental alternative.”
Participants of this day’s meeting stated in written material that “at a point when labor declines to recognize any value in the government’s effort to protect non-regular workers, there is no point in continuing the discussion.” They also claimed that “the direction of the Non-Regular Employees’ Bill is fundamentally wrong. The government’s bill ignores obtaining employment flexibility for regular employees, and only focuses on protecting non-regular jobs, increasing enterprises’ cost burdens.”
Furthermore, employers have taken a strong stance against recent violent situations in some workplaces, planning to take legal action against the perpetrators, drifting farther away from the possibility of reconciliation among labor, management and government.
On May 17, in a statement against the announcement by the employers, the FKTU said “the employers’ refusal to renegotiate the non-regular workers’ legislation, unless the rigidity of regular jobs is settled, is an attempt to lead the talks by using non-regular workers’ employment instability as mortgage.” It criticized employers for refusing to talk and declaring war on the labor movement.
The Korea Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) also made a statement claiming that “the employers’ call to ‘elevate flexibility in regular jobs’ is an anachronism disregarding reality, considering that the number of non-regular jobs has already exceeded 8 million.”
The Bill on Non-Regular Employees’ Protection could not be passed at the National Assembly in early May, in spite of 11 working-level meetings by the Korea Tripartite Commission, due to differences of opinions on key issues between labor and management. With the employers’ declaration, there is concern that it is highly unlikely that the bill will make it through the National Assembly’s next Extraordinary Session in June.
