hankyoreh

A career as a civil servant in South Korea has often been called an "iron rice bowl" because of its job security, but that may change soon as local governments are moving to weed out incompetent workers. In recent weeks, most of South Korea's 16 major regional administrative bodies have one after another announced steps to pick out officials who are unqualified for their tasks and neglect their duties to send them to monotonous field jobs -- such as picking up cigarette butts and monitoring vehicles emitting too much exhaust on the street.

The local governments said they will expel the officials for good if they don't show any signs of self-reflection and improvement.

Spearheading the movement is the Seoul City government, which ordered bureau chiefs to pick 3 percent of their junior officials for eviction. The list of hundreds of city workers to conduct the menial jobs is to be determined by April 10.

"If this painful measure can completely eradicate factors which pose a threat to the existence of our organization and obstruct our development, there will be no more painful actions," said Seoul City Mayor Oh Se-hoon in an email sent to 9,921 city employees earlier this week.

Oh said he set up the 3 percent target to help bureau chiefs pick problematic workers without being carried away by personal ties, adding they might otherwise condone some real incompetent employees who are close to them.

He said he will provide incentives and rewards to city officials deemed competent and diligent.

Other regional governments are taking similar steps, with one province in southeastern South Korea pushing for "harsher measures."

"Taking a thorough look at Seoul's plan, I felt that is like forcing students who don't do homework to clean school toilets," said Gov. Kim Tae-ho of South Gyeongsang Province.

His aides said the provincial government will come up with "harsher eviction measures" in the coming months.

The southern resort island of Jeju also joined the movement by planning to disband "inefficient, idle" administrative offices and reconsolidate them with other agencies.

The moves initially prompted hopes that they might help reduce widespread idleness and lethargy among civil servants in South Korea, but they also triggered questions and doubts over whether regional governments have fair evaluation systems.

Dozens of unionized city workers staged rallies near Seoul City Hall on Thursday night, with a few of them having their heads shaved in protest.

"We agreed with the objective of reforming officialdom, but the '3 percent target' is too harsh and can be implemented with only personal judgments by bureau chiefs," said Oh Hyung-min, head of the labor union of the Seoul City government.

The union is set to launch larger-scale rallies if the city government doesn't cancel its plan, he said.

Meanwhile, a sense of urgency and frustration swept through many offices.

"I have worked diligently for 32 years, but I heard I would be evicted. I don't know how I will tell my son and his wife," said an official at the Seoul City government, on condition of anonymity.

"I've done my best in my job since I was transferred to this bureau. I'm choked with sorrow as I don't belong to my bureau chief's direct (factional) line," said another city official likely to be blacklisted in a message posted on the union's Internet bulletin board.

The system first began in January in the southeastern industrial city of Ulsan, which transferred officials who received poor marks for their job performance, to insignificant minor jobs.
Seoul, March 16 (Yonhap News)