By Kang Hyun-kyung
Staff Reporter
Businesses in Europe and North America address employment and working conditions in their code of conduct, but such elements are missing in local firms' codes, observed a labor expert.
``Leading businesses have begun looking at corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a business strategy in recent years. But none of them consider aspects such as the working conditions of temporary workers as part of their code of business conduct,'' the expert working with a government-funded think tank told The Korea Times on condition of anonymity.
The labor-management relations expert offered this insight Thursday when asked what options the Lee Myung-bak administration has when it looks at ways of reducing the rate of temporary workers, something he pledged to do during a televised talk show on Sept. 9.
President Lee said he fully understood the plight of temporary workers as he was in a similar situation in his mid-20s.
Lee said he cleaned downtown Seoul areas with other full-time workers at the time, but his pay was 50 percent that of his colleagues. ``It was frustrating. And I felt it was unfair.''
Kim Yoo-sun, head of the Korea Labor and Society Institute, said the rate of temporary workers has been between 55 and 56 percent since 2003.
Kim estimated the figure, based on data available from the National Statistical Office.
Temporary workers have same working hours as their permanent counterparts, but only receive about 51 percent of the wage that permanent workers make.
They try to make ends meet with high job insecurity and a lack of occupational benefits.
Rep. Lee Jung-hee of the minor opposition Democratic Labor Party (DLP) gave a list of the difficulties facing temporary workers.
``These workers are required to work an additional 100 hours every month. Their salaries are 10 won more than the minimum wage, which is 3,770 won per hour, and they work under a three-month contract,'' said the lawmaker who joined a hunger strike with workers who were fired from local satellite broadcasting and technology firm Kiryung Electronics.
In his 100-minute conversation with the public at the KBS Hall in Seoul, CEO-turned-President Lee explained the tricky nature of policy problems.
In a free market economy, firms search for cheap labor and low costs to realize business profits. A rigid labor market, high dismissal costs and legislation aimed at protecting workers' job security creates barriers for employers.
Lee said his administration was considering giving tax benefits to firms to encourage employers to consider changing the status of temporary workers to permanent.
The President said all stakeholders in the economy ― the government, employers and unions ― need to sit down together to discuss a ``social compact'' to tackle these workers' job insecurity.
Lee, however, did not detail what he had in mind for the social compact.
The labor expert of the think tank said the mindset of employers was set against this happening.
She said large businesses consider the legislation to protect temporary workers, which became effective from 2007, as an obstacle to their business activities.
``It will be hard for the government, employers and workers to sit down together to discuss ways of resolving the negative fallout of increasing temporary work contracts as long as business leaders hold this view,'' she said.
The expert put forth a code of business conduct, which is widely adopted by businesses in Europe and some North American firms such as GAP International, as an option to consider.
Garment business GAP adopted the binding Code of Vendor Conduct, which applies to all factories that produce goods for GAP or any of its subsidiaries.
The GAP code deals with requirements regarding working hours and working conditions that are in line with the International Labor Organization's (ILO) standards, often called core labor conventions.
Specifically, the guidelines said workers may ``refuse overtime without any threat, or penalty, punishment or dismissal.''
If factories working in the garment business violate the code of conduct, GAP either terminates its business relations or requires the factories to implement a corrective action plan.
The labor expert said if leading businesses take a lead role in moving the code of conduct campaign forward by including employment conditions in their CSR strategy, others will follow suit.
``However, I think the chances of local businesses including this in their business strategy are low as business leaders are reluctant to put employment conditions into their CSR, '' she said.