temporary workers' bill-collapse

SEOUL, July 1 (Yonhap) -- Talks between ruling and opposition parties passed their deadline Wednesday without an agreement on a bill that decides the fate of tens of thousands of temporary workers.

Officials from the two sides indicated that the talks would continue, however,
citing partial concessions made during last-minute negotiations.
Ranking members from the ruling Grand National Party (GNP), the main opposition
Democratic Party (DP) and the splinter opposition Liberty Forward Party (LFP)
have held rounds of negotiations since late last week to try to hammer out an
agreement on revising the temporary workers' bill.
The talks fell through on a key issue -- deciding on the duration of a grace
period for maintaining the current law before enforcing the mandatory transition
of non-regular workers to full-time employees.
The government, after a meeting with ruling party officials earlier Wednesday,
decided to ask companies to refrain from immediately laying off workers and said
it will establish contingency measures for worst-case scenarios.
Parties were expected to continue negotiations throughout the day.
"The DP offered a new proposal so we decided to meet again in the morning to
discuss it in detail. The differences in suggested grace periods are only six
months, so we must reach a compromise as soon as possible," Rep. Cho Won-jin, the
ranking GNP member of parliament's Environment and Labor Committee, said in a
radio interview.
In a statement, National Assembly Speaker Kim Hyung-o urged the parties to reach
an agreement and also called for the Environment and Labor Committee to convene
separate talks on the proposed revision by the ruling party.
Non-regular workers account for some 37 percent of the nation's total workforce,
according to government data. Under the current law, enacted on July 1, 2007,
companies are obliged to promote irregular workers to regular status after two
years of employment at a single workplace.
The government and the ruling party say that without an extension of the current
law, the country may see domino-effect layoffs, as only a few employers are
likely to promote their non-regular workers -- including contract workers and
part-time workers -- to regular employees when the two years are up, given the
current economic downturn and complicated legal restraints in firing employees.
The government and the GNP forecast that up to 700,000 temporary workers may be
let go this month alone. The opposition DP insists the numbers are inflated to
press a compromise and say the number of affected workers ranges between 300,000
to 400,000.
Two umbrella labor unions -- the Korean Confederation of Trade unions and the
Federation of Korean Trade Unions -- strongly oppose implementing a moratorium,
saying they "can't accept any discussions based on a grace period before
implementing the law." The two unions were not involved in the latest
negotiation.
DP Chairman Chung Sye-kyun, during a meeting of the party's leaders, called the
GNP's two-year moratorium proposal a "retrogressive revision." The government
should discard its "band-aid" policies and think about how it can induce
companies to hire more regular workers, he said.
odissy@yna.co.kr