By Kim Tae-jong
Staff Reporter
President-elect Lee Myung-bak's transition team Tuesday said it wants to leave unchanged the two-year maximum contact period for non-permanent workers in opposition to a proposal by the Ministry of Labor.
The response came after the ministry suggested that the period should be extended to three years.
The rejection is attributed to the possible opposition and conflict with labor groups that fear the extension could further undermine their job security.
``It looks like that the incoming government is concerned that the extension could have additional adverse impact on the already unstable labor market. That's because it would only result in increasing the number of non-permanent workers,'' Eun soo-mi, a research fellow at the Korea Labor Institute, said.
But ironically, the labor ministry called for the extension on the grounds that it will allow non-permanent workers to be more skillful, which can give them more chances to promote their job status to permanent.
The government and corporate management have long been at odds with labor over the maximum contract period for non-permanent workers before legislation of the Protection Law for Non-Permanent Workers in November of 2006. The law came into effect last July.
The Labor Ministry and management have demanded three years as the maximum contract period to protect non-permanent workers' rights while labor called for one year citing the same reasons.
Tuesday's suggestion by the ministry was also criticized as they attempted to revise the new law only six months after its legislation, which makes it impossible to evaluate its efficiency.
``We haven't had enough time to discuss the efficiency of the new law yet. If they revise the law, it could only create more confusion,'' Eun said.