By Kim Hyo-jin
Rival parties agreed Wednesday to pass the pending labor reform bills by the end of this year.
The floor leaders of the ruling Saenuri Party and the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) reached the agreement after five hours of negotiations, said party officials.
The parties will hold an extraordinary National Assembly session in a few weeks time to approve a set of five labor reform bills. However, they failed to fix an exact date for the session. The current session of the National Assembly will end on Dec. 9.
The bills proposed by the Saenuri Party have been pending in the Assembly due to wide differences between the rival parties.
The ruling party drew up the bills to revise labor standards, employment insurance, industrial accident insurance and employment terms for non-regular workers on Sept. 16 in line with President Park Geun-hye’s drive to reform the labor market.
The ruling camp argued that revision will create more jobs, especially for young people. It stipulates easing the limitation of employing non-regular workers from two to four years and temporarily expanding the number of industries permitted to dispatch workers to other enterprises.
However, the opposition parties criticized the bills for its increasing employment flexibility that could generate more non-regular workers.
The NPAD claim that non-regular workers should be able to access the permanent contract with the enterprise after the two years term of employment.
The bills have been criticized by the labor sector for defying an agreement reached during the tripartite talks among labor, management and the government on Sept. 15.
The labor sector agreed with the government on easing regulations on employment on condition that further consultations on detailed measures will follow. The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), the nation's second-largest umbrella union, harshly denounced the ruling party for its “unilateral” plan made a one day after the agreement.