By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter

The nation's largest civil servants union will hold a vote over whether to maintain its membership with the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, despite suppression and warnings from its employers.

The voting result is expected to have a huge impact on labor circles here, where the two largest umbrella unions are preparing a general strike against what they consider to be the administration's "business-friendly" policies.

According to the 115,000-member Korean Government Employees' Union (KGEU), voting will begin with the Ministry of Environment, Tuesday, followed by the Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the National Agricultural products Quality Management Service and the National Statistical Office throughout the week.

The voting of 6,000 members is expected to cause a stir among other public workers' unions, which are all under pressure from the central government to withdraw. Authorities said those joining the collective action of the umbrella unions will all be prosecuted and are reportedly considering disciplinary action against KGEU leaders who participated in a meeting of nationwide union leaders on Sunday in Seoul.

An insider of the Ministry of Public Administration and Security said it was evident that the group would collapse. "Regardless of the voting outcome, the workers will seek withdrawal of membership individually," he said.

Unionists at the National Election Commission held a similar vote last month, but failed to gain the necessary two-thirds to drop out. However, individual withdrawal continued, leaving only 13 members in the branch union at present. Still, the unionists showed confidence. "The voting is orchestrated by the administration. It will fall out," the KGEU stated. "Moreover, we have received memberships from Changwon and Sacheon in South Gyeongsang province as well as Busan. We are getting larger than ever."

The KCTU and its dovish partner the Federation of Korean Trade Unions will hold six-party talks with representatives from the labor ministry and business leaders by Nov. 25. They are asking to scrap the implementation of the Labor Law, which abolishes the wages of full-time unionists paid by employers and allows only one negotiation channel for unions at a single workplace, while authorities support it. The law goes into effect from New Year's Day.

The labor ministry said Monday that companies which pay wages to full-time unionists would be closely monitored by authorities and be subject to legal punishment, hinting at the possibility of a breakdown in the talks.

bjs@koreatimes.co.kr