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Parties move to reduce weekly working hours
By Jun Ji-hye
Parties are set to pass a bill to reduce legally-set corporate working hours within this month’s extraordinary session in the National Assembly.
The move is in line with President Park Geun-hye’s earlier pledge to raise the nation’s employment rate to 70 percent by creating 930,000 decent part-time jobs by 2017.
Ten lawmakers of the ruling Saenuri Party including Rep. Kim Sung-tae, a member of the Assembly Environment and Labor Committee, proposed a revision to the Labor Standards Law at the end of last month to reduce statutory working hours to 52 hours a week from the current 68 hours.
The main opposition Democratic Party (DP) has long since called for a reduction in the long working hours as one of the measures to improve working conditions for employees.
Rep. Choi Kyung-hwan, floor leader of the ruling party, told reporters Monday, “Reduction of working time is the basis of creating part-time jobs and boosting the employment rate. We will intensively handle the issue in the June Assembly’s session.”
DP floor leader Jun Byung-hun said the ruling and opposition parties will discuss the matters in the relevant standing committee.
Rep. Hong Young-pyo, a DP legislator and member of the labor committee, said, “Both parties hold no different view on reducing the working hours.”
Saenuri Party’s Kim said, “As government and parties all agreed on the need for working hour reduction, contentious issues in the passage of the bill is not the measure itself, but such issues as when it will take effect, raising minimum wages and tax benefits.”
In laying the bill before the house, lawmakers said that that the average annual working hours in Korea is some 2,100 hours, one of the longest among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, which they agreed is a problem.
“Working long hours harms laborers’ health and safety, which will negatively influence families and social communities. It will never work out well for productivity either,” the paper said.
Lawmakers also claimed that exceptional types of business that are unrestricted by workers’ hours limit are too wide, which hinders any attempt at reforming the custom of working long hours.
Once the bill is approved, along with working hour reduction, the number of such business will decrease to 10 from the current 26. Businesses that will not be affected are transport, broadcasting and electric communication industries.
However, outside the Assembly, the business circles are opposed to the move raising concerns about cost increases in new hiring, while labor sectors fear about wages declining, which increases the likelihood of further conflicts.