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Mary Robertson

Mary Robertson, a visiting researcher at the Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU), shared her opinions on the South Korean government’s public institution performance-based annual pay system during a May 16 visit to the offices of the Korean Public Service and Transport Workers’ Union (KPTU) - part of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) - in Seoul.

She said, “There is no country like South Korea in the way it has unilaterally pushed for a public sector performance-based annual pay system without any discussions with the National Assembly or labor unions.”

“Major advanced economies are all actually abolishing or reducing their performance-based systems,” she added.

Robertson was in South Korea to attend an international discussion at the National Assembly on May 17 on the topic of “problems with the public sector performance-based annual pay system and possibilities for a labor union response.”

“In Britain, performance-based public servant pay was introduced for managers in the 1980s and expanded to the areas of education and healthcare, but the system didn’t work. Since the 2000s there have been improvements to all aspects of the system,” she explained.

“Originally, the system’s operation was controlled by the central government, but that has given way to independent management today,” she added. “The National Audit Office is debating right now whether to do away with a mandatory quota system for assessment levels.”

According to Robertson, the South Korean public institution performance-based pay system is exhibiting the same problems seen in the past. They include mandatory quotas for workers with low performance, increased use of arbitrary remuneration ratios, a deepening wage gap among workers, the exclusion of unions through individual wage contracts, and impediments to collective action.

Robertson also rejected Seoul‘s rationale for the system, which has been to argue that wage levels are higher in the public sector than in the private sector and that a serious wage gap based on term of service has shown the need for wage system reforms.

“Typically, your experience and ability with your work increases in proportion to your term of service,” she observed.

“If wage levels are higher in the public sector than in the private, that means you need to find ways of standardizing upward, not downward,” she said.

Robertson also said the motivation for public sector employees to work hard “comes from dedication to satisfaction with duties and social services, not wages.”

“An evaluation system based on performance is merely used as a way of boosting labor intensity, and actually diminishes motivation to work,” she added.

Robertson went on to cite the example of Sweden.

“The labor unions there were part of the performance-based pay system introduction process and were able to make positive changes to the system such as eliminating elements that discriminated in terms of wages between women and men, which resulted in greater satisfaction for workers,” she said.

Robertson also identified a list of preconditions for introduction of such a system, including assessment at the team rather than individual level, evaluation transparency, and worker participation guarantees in the introduction and management processes.

Robertson studied economics at Oxford University, the University of London, and the University of Leeds before going to work as a senior policy researcher for the Mayor of London. Her major research focuses included privatization and neoliberalism.

By Park Tae-woo, staff reporter

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