Will Everland labor union signal change for Samsung?

By Park Si-soo

A trade union has been set up in Samsung Group’s entertainment business unit Everland, dealing a blow to the conglomerate’s “no labor union policy” that has been upheld for decades.

The Ministry of Employment and Labor confirmed Friday four executives of the Yongin-based theme park filed an application with a district office on June 20 to officially establish the company’s first trade union. The union was legally acknowledged three days later, the ministry said.

“All members of the union are executives who want to maintain the long-established smooth and stable relationship between labor and management,” said an Everland spokesman, indicating that there will be no major changes to its working system. “We will fully cooperate with the union if it asks for bargaining talks.”

However, many labor activists are skeptical of the union’s role, citing the timing of its establishment.

The union was established just a week before a law revision that permits multiple unions within a company took effect on July 1. The assortment of labor unions is required to pick one representative bargaining unit to be at the negotiation table with management.

For that reason, they suspect, management assisted the union’s establishment in a tactical way to help it secure bargaining power before the emergence of other unions led by reform-minded employees. Once the union is selected as bargaining unit, it will maintain the position for the next two years.

No rival union has been set up in Everland since the adoption of multiple labor unions system.

“The union has come as a great embarrassment,” said a spokesman for the progressive Korean Confederation of Trade Unions. “We have been working to establish a trade union and then secure bargaining power with strong support from Everland employees. But this scheme has faced a great challenge.”

The new union system was adopted after a delay of more than 14 years due to concerns over an increase in strikes and conflicts between labor and management.

“The adoption of multiple labor unions is expected to drastically change the workplace environment,” Labor Minister Lee Chae-pil said during a recent news briefing. “The arbitrary benefits of a single union will disappear, and the unions’ decisions will be made in a more democratic way, reflecting unionists’ diverse demands.”

Currently, trade union exists in nine Samsung Group affiliates — Everland, Samsung Life Insurance, Samsung Securities, Samsung Fine Chemicals, Samsung Heavy Industries, Shilla Hotel, Samsung Fire and Marine Insurance, S1, and Samsung Medison. Experts say the unions except for those in Samsung Life and Fine Chemicals are idle.

In the meantime, 144 new trade unions have been created in the first five days since the Labor Law revision took effect, the ministry said.