By Lee Kyung-min
Kim Dong-man, head of the Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU), said Friday that his organization will withdraw from tripartite committee talks among labor, management and the government, if the latter unilaterally pushes ahead with labor reform without due deliberation. Further, they said that they will vote against lawmakers who are active in pushing such plans in the coming general election and in the 2017 presidential election.
The head of the nation's second largest umbrella union said an all out strike was inevitable if the government remains unchanged regarding key labor issues involving non-regular workers and in adopting a performance-based salary system.
“The ruling Saenuri Party and the government should immediately discard their labor reform plans containing unresolved issues. Failing to do so would be a direct affront to the agreement reached on Sept. 15,” he said at a press conference at the FKTU office in Yeouido.
The thorny issues include the terms of employment; reduction or revising unemployment benefits; retirement allowance expansion; contract resumption limits; and restrictions on using non-regular workers in specific fields.
“The Ministry of Labor and Employment has been stepping up efforts to achieve their goals, but such a unilateral move would result in unions staging an all out anti-government strike.”
While the government and the ruling party is pushing for implementing a performance-based salary system to reduce workers’ bad performances, the FKTU opposed it saying it would be abused by a company that seeks to dismiss people more easily.
“The company will dismiss underperforming workers after arbitrarily giving them low evaluations based on their loyalty, or on whether they cause others to be more vocal in their rights as union members,” he said.
Earlier on Monday, FKTU said it alone would submit a report carrying experts' opinions on the divisive issues to the Assembly.
The decision came after the tripartite representatives failed to reach an agreement on the non-regular worker issue. The committee initially planned to submit a co-authored report containing each of their compromises to the National Assembly for legislation.