President calls for swift Assembly action on non-regular workers bill

(ATTN: RECASTS lead paras; UPDATES with ruling party's bid to convene Assembly
session in paras 6-10)
By Byun Duk-kun
SEOUL, June 22 (Yonhap) -- President Lee Myung-bak on Monday urged ruling and
opposition parties to move quickly on a controversial revision to a labor law
that he warned if left unchanged could lead to mass layoffs of non-regular
workers.
Under the current law that took effect on July 1, 2007, companies with 100 or
more employees that want to continue employing non-regular workers who have
served for longer than two years must change their job status to "regular."
Without a revision of the law, domestic companies will be forced to dismiss large
numbers of non-regular workers with employment periods of over two years in order
to avoid escalating labor costs.
Lee's call comes as the rival parties have been unable to convene an
extraordinary parliamentary session that was originally scheduled to open at the
beginning of the month.
The session was first delayed by a few days due to the death of former President
Roh Moo-hyun on May 23, but the rival parties have still not been able to agree
on a starting date due to differences over a number of government and ruling
party backed bills, including a controversial revision of a media law that seeks
to allow cross ownership of broadcasting companies by private firms and major
newspaper owners.
The ruling Grand National Party said later Monday that it will submit a request
on Tuesday for the start of the parliamentary session from as early as Friday.
But the main opposition Democratic Party remains firm in its stance that it will
agree to an extra session only if the governing party agrees not to push through
the controversial bills and if President Lee Myung-bak apologizes for the death
of his predecessor Roh Moo-hyun, who killed himself in late May amid what his
supporters called a politically motivated corruption probe targeting his family.
"We can no longer delay the convening of a special parliamentary session. The GNP
will even choose to unilaterally hold an Assembly session to handle mountains of
outstanding bills," GNP deputy spokesman Shin Sung-bum said in a media briefing.
"Our party leadership has also decided not to accept the opposition party's
demand for the presidential apology over Roh's death."
An extra parliamentary session can be convened three days after a demand from the
president or from over one quarter of all Assembly members.
"The most urgent task is to improve working conditions for non-regular workers,"
President Lee was quoted as saying in a meeting with his senior secretaries,
asserting the proposed revision of the irregular workers law would help achieve
that goal.
The government claims a failure to enact the proposed revision will lead to
hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people losing their jobs as the law
currently limits to 24 months the time that companies can employ a non-regular
worker before having to hire the person on as a full-time employee with higher
pay.
The bill seeks to extend the time limit to four years.
The opposition Democratic Party and the more liberal Democratic Workers Party
have strongly opposed the revision, claiming it will lead to a significant
expansion of non-regular employees. The number of non-regular workers here
increased to over 5 million from some 1.5 million when the law was enacted in
2007.
President Lee said the ongoing rift between the political parties was mainly due
to ideological divisions, according to his spokesman Lee Dong-kwan.
"Integration and unity are not something that can be achieved only with slogans.
A society must have a strong middle to be healthy," he was quoted as saying.
bdk@yna.co.kr
(END)