(EDITORIAL from the Korea Herald on July 3)

Massive layoffs

What is required of political parties in these times of economic hardship is
effort to enhance job security for those in work and create jobs for those who
need them. Their unforgivable ineptitude, however, has put hundreds of thousands
of workers at risk of losing their jobs.

The clumsy handling of the issue dates back to November 2006, when the political
parties enacted laws concerning the status of irregular workers. Undoubtedly,
they had the interests of irregular workers in mind when they decided to ban
their employers from keeping them on their payrolls without changing their status
to that of regular workers after two years of employment. The laws took effect on
July 1, 2007.
But the political parties were mistaken when they naively believed that most
irregular workers, if not all, would be retained as regular workers. As the date
of enforcement, July 1, 2009, was approaching, it dawned on the ruling Grand
National Party and President Lee Myung-bak's administration that employers would
rather dismiss them than hire them as regular workers at higher cost. The skills
they had acquired were not likely to provide them with new status during an
economic downturn.
Against this backdrop, the Grand National Party proposed to the main opposition
Democratic Party to revise the laws to extend the contract period to four years.
But it fell on deaf ears, with the Democratic Party claiming that there would be
little change in the total number of the employed because new irregular workers
would replace those having served out the two-year period.
The opposition party could be right if the economy were in good shape. But news
reports say companies, mostly state-owned corporations and small enterprises,
started to send official notices of dismissal to irregular workers.
Based on figures provided by the National Statistical Office, the administration
says 700,000 to 1 million workers will be at risk of losing their jobs during the
next year. Of course, some of them will be hired as regular workers or move to
other worksites as irregular workers.
The lion's share of responsibility must be shouldered by the Democratic Party,
which refused to compromise with the Grand National Party. It also obstructed the
revision process by staging a sit-in protest in the National Assembly.
The chairwoman of the Labor and Environment Committee, affiliated with the
opposition party, deserves severe public censure. She neglected her duty when she
refused to adopt the issue of revision as an agenda item for deliberation.
Nor is the Grand National Party blameless. As the majority party, it must be held
accountable for failing to pull off a deal with the opposition. Wasn't horse
trading an option available to the ruling party?
The worst victims are those who were deprived of an opportunity of being hired as
regular workers with assistance from the government. If the laws had been
revised, the government would have provided businesses with 250,000 won a month
in subsidies for each irregular worker they hired as a regular worker. It
earmarked as much as 125 billion won for this purpose when the National Assembly
approved the supplementary budget bill in April.
The rival parties will have to restart negotiations as soon as possible if they
wish to limit the damage. Passing the buck will be of little help. The collateral
damage will snowball if no action is taken to revise the laws.
The ruling party cannot rule out the possibility of railroading the revision
bills if the majority rule is not honored. It cannot afford to turn a blind eye
to the plight of irregular workers. It will have to act one way or another - the
nation already has a population of 940,000 unemployed workers.
(END)