hankyoreh

north Gyeonggi correspondent)

By Kim So-youn, staff reporter

The International Labor Organization (ILO) has urged the South Korean government to stop suppressing public sector labor unions and find a lasting solution to problematic labor-management relations.

The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) held a press conference on Nov. 19 at its office in Seoul’s Jeong neighborhood and announced, “On Nov. 15, the ILO issued a report that includes recommendations written by the Committee on Freedom of Association. The Lee Myung-bak administration’s oppression of public labor unions has been the subject of official condemnation from the international community.”

The KCTU and the Korean Public Service and Transportation Workers’ Union submitted complaints to the ILO in January and March 2011 over the South Korean government’s oppression of public worker labor unions. In October 2011, the South Korean government sent a response to the ILO. On Nov. 15, the ILO’s Committee on Freedom of Association issued its recommendation after deliberation.

The ILO stated in the report that it looked closely at the suppression of labor unions at many public institutions and corporations in South Korea, and recommended that the government take measures to address the issue. The organization also pointed out that crucial parts of the Lee Myung-bak administration’s policy to advance labor-management relations, namely the guidelines of budget compilation, reports on management assessment and auditing, sparked a chain reaction of public institutions’ unilateral revocation of trade unions’ collective bargaining rights. Public workers’ unions with the railroad corporation and power providers were subject to suppression by way of unilateral cancellation of collective bargaining rights. The ILO advised the government to carry out discussions with labor unions before implementing budget compilation guidelines.

The organization also called for the government to reconsider criminal charges for striking labor unions. The ILO recommended that if the executives and unionists who took part in strikes at workplaces of railroad, gas, power providers were arrested on the charge of obstruction of business, the government immediately should drop the charges. The organization called for the government to reinstate 169 union leaders, who had been fired from KORAIL on the grounds that they took part in strikes in November 2009.

Concerning unfair labor actions by some public institutions, the organization called for a thorough investigation. The ILO requested that the Korean government investigate two cases that the Korea Labor Institute pressured its trade union to withdraw from the KCTU after strikes occurred, and union leaders and members of Korea Institute of Construction Technology maintained that they were discriminated against by management.

The KCTU said, “As the ILO made authoritative decisions after extensive investigation and deliberation, the government must accept its recommendations.”

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