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| Participants in a seminar on "normal wages" listen to a lecture at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry office in central Seoul, Thursday. / Yonhap |
By Nam Hyun-woo
Unions have criticized the government's new guidelines on "normal wages" that they claim only benefit employers.
The criticism came immediately following the Ministry of Employment and Labor's announcement of stricter guidelines on regular bonuses that can be included as normal wages.
Unionists claim the new rule is not in line with a landmark Supreme Court ruling on Dec. 18 that normal wages should include regular bonuses.
Normal wages serve as the base from which employers calculate overtime and other payments.
The guidelines stipulate that certain bonuses "only paid to incumbent employees" working over a certain period of time should be excluded from normal wages because they have no regularity or fixation. To be counted as normal wages, bonuses should have a high degree of regularity and fixation.
Under the new rules, seniority-based allowances and skill-based payments are also regarded as normal wages. Incentive payments, though their amounts differ according to an employee's performance, also constitute normal pay.
The guidelines have prompted a backlash from trade unions.
The Korea Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), an umbrella group, said in a statement that the guidelines are "one sided" in favor of employers.
"The guidelines run counter to the Supreme Court's ruling," it said.
The Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU), another umbrella union group, also protested.
"The guidelines lack any revision of previously established administrative rules," said FKTU spokesman Kang Hoon-jung. "Revisions should come first, if the government is sincere about improving labor-management relations," he said.
According to the ministry, the guidelines were set up to clarify the Supreme Court's ruling that regular bonuses paid to workers at intervals exceeding one month constitute normal wages, which was criticized as "ambiguous." This was due to its "blunted ruling" on how to claim unpaid salaries by excluding regular bonuses from normal wages.
The ruling was expected to cause a financial burden to companies that have not included bonuses as normal pay so far.
The highest court said that employees can claim money unpaid for the past three years, but cannot claim under the following conditions: If both the union and management had previously agreed to exclude regular bonuses from normal wages. Also if the enforcement of the ruling is deemed to adversely affect the financial health of the company, employees cannot demand retroactive pay.
The court ruled that labor-management agreements made after the ruling are not affected by such conditions.
The ministry guidelines interpreted "after the ruling" as "when labor and management adjust wages after the ruling" and stated the conditions are effective until this year's wage negotiations, which means workers cannot claim compensation until these are concluded.
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