South Korea on June 12 was released from monitoring of labor-management relations by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which had been ongoing since the year after Korea joined the group of nations in 1996.

The OECD held a board meeting in Paris on this day and decided to end its monitoring, which had been focused on Korea’s labor law reforms and overall labor-management relations.

Regarding such a result, the Ministry of Labor in Seoul stressed that most of issues raised by the OECD, such as bestowment of the right to organize to teachers and government officials and abolishment of a system of compulsory arbitration by the government in law-designated public utilities.

Since its entry into the OECD in 1996, the South Korean government has had 12 specific cases of investigation of its labor practices over the ten-year period. In fact, Korea is the only OECD-member country to have been monitored over the long term for reform of labor-management relations. The government promised to raise its labor laws and labor-management relationship to the international standards when joining the OECD, but failed to do so in a period of time satisfactory to the OECD. As a consequence, the OECD granted monitoring rights in Korea to its Employment, Labor and Social Affairs Committee (ELSAC) in January 1997.

However, in connection with the three-year postponement for allowing multiple trade unions for a single company, the Korean government should provide additional information on the progress of the matter to the ELSAC by 2010 when a revised law takes effect.

During the 110th round of ELSAC meetings on April 23, some member nations agreed to end monitoring on South Korea on condition that Seoul ratifies three of the major standards of the International Labor Organization (ILO),adding.. which South Korea has not yet signed. For this, Korea should expand civil servants’ right to organize and guarantee their right to take action as well as allowing multiple labor unions at a single company.

Labor raised objection to the OECD’s termination of monitoring, stressing a necessity of continuous monitoring. Woo Mun-suk, a spokesperson of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), said, "As the government continues to arrest unionists for taking part in union activities and doesn’t allow public employees basic labor rights including the right to strike, the nation should receive continued special monitoring from the OECD."

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]