PSPD in English Socio-Economic 2009-06-18   2589

Entitle Labor Rights to Employee-Assimilated Workers

In South Korea, workers in an employee-assimilated employment such as truck driving, construction-material delivering, home-visit tutoring and insurance planning are not recognized as a laborer so that they cannot exert labor rights such as right to organize, right to collectively bargain, and right to collectively strike. However, employee-assimilated workers are alike laborer and should be entitled labor rights since they are entirely subjected to the contractor (namely the employer) and termination of a contract means they lose their jobs.

Recently, a truck driver in South Korea killed himself as struggling to obtain labor rights for employee-assimilated workers. Labor rallies were held by many employee-assimilated workers for demanding enhance their labor rights and working conditions. However, the Lee Myungbak government strictly applied the current law denying their right to strike and arrested many workers who participated in the rallies.

The PSPD released the statements and held a conference for seeking alternatives to solve the employee-assimilated employment issues. Details are as follows;

 



Statement


The Lee Myungbak Government Should Engage in a Dialogue with Labor to Resolve the Issues of Employee-assimilated Workers!



On May 16, a labor rally was convened. It was caused by the suicide of Park Jongtae, the late Gwangju chapter head of the Korea Cargo Transport Workers’ Union (KCTWU). He killed himself as a last struggle for his rights because the Daehan Logistics company breached the oral agreement to increase commission 30won(yes just 3cent) per delivery and it sent a text message of the termination of contract to who did not accept the change. Numerous workers were arrested during the rally.

The Labor Minister, Lee Younghee said that “I feel sorry regarding the suicide of Park Jongtae but I am not quite sure whether it is such a significant thing that a person should give up his life for.” He also reiterated that he did not agree with a notion that basic labor rights of employee-assimilated workers should be guaranteed. These are extremely inappropriate statements that should not be done by the Labor Minister who has to protect the rights of workers.

The Lee government violated the freedom of association as ordering a self-correction to the construction and drivers’ trade unions, stating that employee-assimilated workers such as truck drivers should not be recognized as laborers, thus they should be dismissed from a union membership. As hostile labor policies against of the Lee government were getting worse, the ‘urgent intervention’ was declared by the International Labor Organization (ILO).

Nevertheless, President Lee Myungbak reiterated that flexibility of the labor market was an urgent task that should be pursued without a delay. President Lee also said that “Korea’s reputation in the world has been damaged by protests with ‘bamboo spears’” which were actually bamboo sticks. These comments from President show that he would not consider the causes of the incidents but push measures to make the labor market more flexible by emphasizing only a facet of the situation.

However, as we can see from recent incidents related to the employee-assimilated employment issues, a more flexible labor market would make workers feel more insecure about their jobs and create social conflicts and costs stemming from them. President Lee, as a chief policymaker of the nation, should focus on how to create more stable and better jobs, rather than pushing measures to make the labor market more flexible.

The solution of the employee-assimilated employment problems relies on whether recognizing the employee-assimilated workers as “laborers.” Rather than weighing the technical legality of the issue, the government should look into those who go through daily ordeal and painful lives, partly due to the narrow applicability of the Labor Law.
The government should accept the request by the Korean Confederation of Trade Union, to engage in a labor-government dialogue. The Ministry of Labor should play a responsible role as a mediator between labor and business, and most of all, provide measures to guarantee the basic labor rights of employee-assimilated workers since protection of labor rights is its reason to exist.



 



Entitle Labor Rights to Employee-Assimilated Workers



The Committee for Fair Labor Society of the PSPD held a conference to discuss the issues of enacting protective law for employee-assimilated workers on June 3, 2009. It was to reveal the harsh realities of employee-assimilated workers and to seek enactment of a protective legislation for them. The protective measures for employee-assimilated workers have been talked for the past ten years, yet any protective measures have not been implemented. Professor Kim Injae from Inha University School of Law presented a paper on the behalf of the PSPD. Main points he argued are as follows;

Employee-assimilated workers are not offered stable jobs and they are under harsh working conditions since they are neither recognized as a regular-type of laborers nor protected by the Labor Law. Employee-assimilated workers are economically dependent on their employers because they survive on their own labor and have no other economic means in case they are fired by employers. Some social and economic protective measures for employee-assimilated workers are needed even though those are not on a par with protection for conventional regular workers.
 
Employers frequently use employee-assimilated employment to nullify protection of the Labor Law and to elude taxation and social insurance payment. The camouflaged employee-assimilated employment strips labor rights. Workers in an employee-assimilated employment have no other choice but to endure those unfair treatment and any cost. It could even lower the labor standards of conventional regular workers if the illegal employers are not properly regulated.
 
Regarding the legality of recognizing employee-assimilated workers as laborers, the problems of employee-assimilated workers could be mostly resolved, without enacting an additional law, by flexibly applying the existing Labor Law. However, the court set the criteria of recognizing workers too narrowly.
 
In conclusion, workers themselves needed to strengthen bargaining power by forming a strong organization in order to raise their own socio-economic status and improve their working conditions. The labor rights are not subject to an approval of the government, but civil liberties that free individual should enjoy.

Since employee-assimilated workers are often exposed to the risks of getting fired by employers, their individual rights should be protected and upheld for making written contracts, abiding by contracts, guarantees of payments, rights to have paid holidays, prevention of sexual harassment, health and safety, institutional watchdog, protecting pregnant women’s rights, and payment equity.


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