Labor union urges conglomerates to join talks on labor bills

By Kim Eun-jung
SEOUL, Nov. 18 (Yonhap) -- The country's umbrella labor union urged conglomerates
Wednesday to participate in fractious negotiations over legal revisions the
government plans to enforce from next year.
The first round of six-way talks, involving two representatives each from labor,
government and management, last month ended without any tangible progress on the
pending labor bills that would recognize only one union at a workplace as a
negotiating partner of company management and ban wages for full-time unionists.
The participants set Nov. 25 as the deadline for the negotiations. Labor Minister
Yim Tae-hee last week said the government will push ahead with the implementation
of the revisions from January as initially planned if the negotiations fail.
Unionists argue the government's revisions encroach on their labor rights. The
decision whether to pay full-time unionists, for example, should be up to the
unions, they say. The government demands the unions adhere to a no work, no pay
principle.
"The negotiations have made little headway because conglomerates who hold the key
to the problem are using the government as a front to insist only on their
interests. If the heads of the conglomerates engage in direct negotiations, we
can expect substantive results," the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU)
said in a statement.
"If the representatives fail to produce any visible results, this rare chance of
having the talks will come to a crisis," the KCTU said. "But the government
continues to take a hard-line policy by suppressing the labor unions of public
workers and teachers even during the course of the talks, putting the
negotiations in an even more difficult situation."
The leaders of Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU), another umbrella group,
have been engaging in a sit-in protest since last week, vowing to go on a
nationwide strike from next month if negotiations do not succeed.
ejkim@yna.co.kr
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