S. Korea Revises Disputed Labor Law

In an effort to quell the nationwide labor unrest that sparked costly strikes earlier this year, South Korean legislators Monday passed a revised labor bill with greater protections for workers and expanded union rights.

But lawmakers admitted that the bipartisan compromise was not expected to completely satisfy either labor or management. The clash over job security versus economic efficiency has grown more acute amid rising unemployment, a widening trade deficit, flagging growth and increasing global competition.

“The new labor bill may not be the best version possible. But it was the only alternative for a quicker economic recovery and better industrial relations in the nation,” the chief policymakers of the ruling and leading opposition parties said in a joint statement.

The new law will supersede revisions rammed through a predawn, semi-secret parliamentary session in December--an action that unleashed some of the worst labor unrest in South Korean history.

The unrest also delivered a blow to President Kim Young Sam’s ruling New Korea Party, whose popularity plummeted as a coalition of academics, lawyers and religious and civic groups condemned the revisions and said the way they were passed was “undemocratic.”

In the ruling party’s most significant compromise Monday, the new law will delay by two years the introduction of a more flexible layoff system. It also will restrict the conditions under which management can dismiss workers to cases involving urgent “operational need.”

The ruling party also agreed to immediately legalize national trade unions such as the militant Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, which spearheaded the three weeks of strikes earlier this year. Labor analysts estimate that as many as 400,000 new members may join the union once it is legalized, at which point it would nearly rival in size the pro-government Federation of Korean Trade Union’s 1.2 million members.

Armed with a new provision allowing labor unions to engage in political activity, workers could become an even more potent force in the presidential elections scheduled for December, analysts say.

But multiple unions within a single corporation will not be allowed until 2002. And public workers, such as teachers, were not given the right to organize and collectively bargain.

The confederation of unions announced its displeasure with the law and said it might hold a national strike May 1 in protest.

But the new law includes a “no work, no pay” provision that is expected to discourage strikers by stripping them of their right to pay during walkouts. And firms will be able to replace strikers with other company employees.

Park Young Ki, a Sogang University professor of industrial relations, said the new law is a flawed compromise that will not please anyone. International labor groups, for example, are pressing South Korea to extend full trade union rights befitting an advanced industrial nation, he said. Last fall, South Korea became only the second Asian nation after Japan to join the club of elite economic powers, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Park said South Korea’s National Assembly should have granted workers full union rights while also giving management the immediate ability to more easily impose layoffs and flexible working hours.

“What I’m trying to point out is the need to balance the rights of workers with the promotion of economic efficiency,” Park said. “But no balance has been maintained in what we ended up with.”