Lecturers' job security remain unclear

By Kim Se-jeong

The government and the ruling Saenuri Party are moving to delay implementing a controversial law intended to improve job security for almost 700,000 part-time lecturers at colleges and universities.

This is the third attempt to delay the law which was originally passed by the National Assembly in 2011 and was supposed to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2016. The party says the delay is inevitable because it is feared that the law will cause mass contract termination of such lecturers due to increased financial burdens on the institutions.

“It is expected that the law will make life more difficult for teachers who are paid hourly, if implemented as it is,” said Rep. Kang Eun-hee of the ruling party, who recently proposed delaying the bill. “The government and universities need more time to review the law and come up with measures so that as many lecturers as possible can benefit from it.”

If passed at the National Assembly’s extraordinary session, the implementation of the law will be put off until 2018.

The law was passed in 2011 to provide more job security to non-permanent lecturers, following the death of a part-time lecturer at Chosun University who killed himself in 2010 after struggling to make ends meet and coming under pressure to provide kickbacks to win a permanent position.

According to the law, universities are required to recognize all part-time lecturers as faculty members and offer them the full range of insurance and benefits. The contract period should be at least one year, while it is now only for a half year, and the lecturers will be guaranteed at least nine hours of teaching per week.

But the law faced an unexpected turn, as universities began terminating contracts with hourly lecturers. They argued that they didn’t have enough money to comply with the new law.

Part-time lecturers also worry the law will deprive them of more job opportunities.

The association of part-time university lecturers said that the government has done nothing for years to solve the problems the law will address, but is merely trying to delay passing the law again just weeks before its implementation.

“The government has done nothing for last five years,” said Lee Sang-yong, a member of the association. “When the bill’s implementation was pushed back previously, the Ministry of Education said it would form a task force to find remedies, but it was a false promise.”

Lee himself is a part-time permanent lecturer teaching philosophy at Pusan National University. He said he’s been working without job security for 22 years. He said he has a family to support, but has never been able to do that.

Lee called on the National Assembly to establish a special committee to look into the issue. He also called for a bigger budget allocated for the colleges. “Without more financial support to the schools, it is impossible for the government to improve lecturers’ working conditions.”