Part-time workers and day laborers are increasingly worried about mass layoffs as employers are not willing to continue to hire them. The problem is the rigid law on the protection of non-regular workers that took effect in July 1, 2007. The law stipulated that businesses should offer non-regular workers regular employment after two years of work. Almost two years have passed since the introduction of the law designed to prevent discrimination against non-regular workers and protect their rights.
But, it is really regrettable that the law has already turned against them despite its legislation purpose of allowing them to enjoy more labor rights. The administration of then-President Roh Moo-hyun pushed the law as part of reform packages. However, the law was strongly opposed by both employers and workers.
Businesses are still against the two-year restriction of employment for each non-regular worker. Under the law, non-regular workers will automatically become regular workers if they continue to work at one company for two years or longer. Thus, employers usually refuse to renew employments contracts for part-timers and casual workers in order not to place them on the regular payroll. Instead, companies try to recruit new non-regular workers.
Labor groups are also against the law because it has many loopholes enabling employers to make the two-year restriction virtually obsolete. That is, non-regular workers are forced to face layoffs once every two years and look for another job. So the law is seen as a means to keep non-regular workers from getting regular status forever.
At stake is the fate of up to 1 million non-regular workers whose two-year contracts will expire from July until the end of the year. Amid the unprecedented global financial and economic crisis, these workers will inevitably lose their jobs due to the ill-conceived law. There already exist 1 million jobless people in South Korea. In this situation, the nation might plunge into a job crisis if it fails to help non-regular workers maintain their employment.
Recognizing the seriousness of this problem, the Ministry of Labor has already presented a bill to revise the law to the National Assembly. The bill calls for the extension of the two-year restriction to four years. The amendment draft, albeit passed by the Assembly, is only a stopgap measure, which cannot find a fundamental solution. But there is an urgent need to stop non-regular workers from going without jobs.
It is also disappointing that lawmakers have yet to start deliberating the government-initiated bill because the governing and opposition parties are at loggerheads with each other over the death of former President Roh Moo-hyun. The main opposition Democratic Party and other splinter parties are now virtually boycotting the Assembly session this month.
The opposition camp is calling for President Lee Myung-bak's apology for Roh's sudden suicide and the introduction of an independent counsel to find who is responsible for his tragic end amid prosecutors' investigation into a bribery scandal surrounding him and his family. It is a pity that the current political stalemate is blocking the Assembly from engaging in its legislative activities to help protect the rights of non-regular workers, whose numbers stand at 5.3 million or 33.4 percent of the nation's total workforce.