Yi Whan-woo is a Korea Times journalist primarily covering finance. He writes in-depth articles on macroeconomy and financial markets and previously covered sports, politics, diplomacy and inter-Korean affairs, among others. Feel free to contact him at yistory@koreatimes.co.kr.
Hiring illegal aliens gets tougher penalty
By Yi Whan-woo
Labor Minister Lee Chae-pil
By Yi Whan-woo
The government will revise the Labor Law to set legal grounds to criminally charge and fine employers hiring illegal immigrants, Employment and Labor Minister Lee Chae-pil said Monday.
“Illegal immigrants must go because they are blocking legal workers from working here,” said Lee during a recent interview. “That’s why we are going to set up legal grounds to punish employers for hiring them,” Lee said.
Currently, the labor ministry has no legal grounds to punish such employers as the Labor Law has no clauses to sanction them. Currently, the employers recruiting illegal immigrants are only subject to punishment for violating the Immigration Law.
“We have had limitations in handling law-breaking employers as they are restricted only by the Immigration Law. We need to revise the Act on Foreign Workers’ Employment to more effectively cope with them,” Lee said.
The minister said the revision to the act will establish the legal grounds to criminally charge and fine law-breaking employers. Still, the government has yet to decide exactly when to revise it.
According to the Korea Immigration Service (KIS), about 12 percent of the country’s 1.44 million foreign population are overstaying their visas.
While taking tougher stances on illegal immigrants, the government will adopt diverse measures to attract talented foreign workers.
Lee said the government has entrusted a study to an institute to draw up details of plans by the end of November to attract professional, higher-skilled foreign workers such as professors with an E-1 visa and researchers with an E-3 visa.
“We will come forward with detailed plans following the results of the study,” Lee said.
At the same time, the government will evaluate employers and score them on how well they follow the guidelines on the recruitment and management of foreign workers.
The ministry sets and controls the quota of foreigners allowed an E-9 visa under the Employment and Permit System (EPS) that was introduced in 2004 to allow small- and mid-sized firms suffering from shortages of manpower to hire immigrant laborers.
The visa is issued to manual workers from 15 Asian countries including China, the Philippines, Pakistan, Vietnam and Uzebekistan. The number of foreigners overstaying the E-9 visa is estimated at about 53,000.
In the first and second half of every year, small- and mid-sized companies with 300 or less employees are eligible to apply to recruit new foreign workers who plan to work in the country for the first time.
The program introduced in April assesses each of the applicants on a scale of 1 to 100 based on their efforts to provide favorable working circumstances under the law for their current foreign employees.
“The evaluation of employers under the point-based system is to give incentives to those who have been hiring legal foreign immigrants over those who have not,” the minister said.
Employers with records of hiring illegal immigrants or those who have been negligent and failed to pay wages repeatedly have been denied the right to apply for foreign workers.
One of the criteria includes employers’ effort to hire locals over foreigners.
“The purpose of the EPS is to support firms with a foreign workforce only if they failed to recruit locals, and the companies should keep that in mind,” he said.
Before the point-based system was adopted, employers were asked to submit applications in person to one of the ministry’s employment service centers in their area during the time given in each half. Those who handed in the forms earlier than others had priority in terms of recruitment.
“Such a recruitment system based on a first-come, first-served basis was problematic because even those who were negligent in practicing our labor policy could hire foreign workers as long as they turned in applications quickly,” Lee said.
The E-9 visa holders mainly work in five industries ― agriculture and livestock, fisheries, manufacturing businesses, construction, and services, which suffer a chronic shortage of manpower.
The minister anticipates that the re-entry policy of the so-called “exemplary” workers, which went effect in July, will contribute to reducing the number of illegally-staying immigrants.
“Before the policy, a foreign worker who worked for up to 4 years and 10 months had to leave the country and could not return for the next six months to work again,” he said. “The new policy allows a foreign worker who served at one company faithfully to re-enter the country three months after leaving.
Hyundai Motor labor dispute
On the hot-button issue of nonpermanent workers, Lee said companies should be willing to shoulder a greater financial burden and adopt a more flexible approach to help resolve discrimination against contract workers.
The conflict between nonpermanent employees and management has been highlighted at Hyundai Motor, with the labor union representing 10,000 nonpermanent workers demanding the nation’s largest automaker convert them into regular workers.
The labor dispute has remained unresolved for months, with management refusing to accept the demands. Local courts have ruled that the automaker has used nonpermanent workers irregularly to sidestep rules requiring companies to grant permanent status to nonpermanent workers should they work for more than two years.
Lee called for Hyundai Motor management to more actively resolve the dispute as the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a nonpermanent worker who filed a suit against the company for terminating his employment contract.
“I basically believe that companies are greedy when it comes to the problem of nonpermanent workers,” Lee said. “Companies should not discriminate nonpermanent workers in terms of wages and perks.”
The wages of nonpermanent workers are about half of those of regular workers at Hyundai Motor, according to the union.
He was critical of the conglomerates that tend to focus on profits.
“Hyundai Motor is not following a ruling by the Supreme Court. Such a move will tarnish the reputation of the global carmaker. I believe Hyundai Motor’s future is not bright if the current stalemate drags on,” Lee said.
He said Hyundai’s recent move to convert 3,000 nonpermanent workers into regular workers was a step in the right direction.
“The government is directly and indirectly intervening in the dispute between the union and management. I expect Hyundai Motor to reasonably resolve the problem as a global enterprise,” Lee said.