hankyoreh

South Korean government and labor organizations have been feuding over an impending decision by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which is set to decide in June whether to end its 10-year inspection on basic labor rights in South Korea. The government wants the OECD to end the inspection, while labor groups hope it continues its monitoring.

The South Korean government told the OECD that it will meet its standards regulating labor rights when it joined the organization in December 1996. But as the government pushed ahead with further restrictive labor laws in January 1997 - despite the trade unions' protest that this would deteriorate the labor rights - the OECD made a decision to monitor Korea to see whether it was following through with its promise. According to this decision, South Korea has been under watch regarding the status of its workers' labor rights by the OECD's Employment, Labor and Social Affairs Committee (ELSAC).

On April 11, the Ministry of Labor said it had recently sent a 34-page report to the OECD, asking the international body to end the inspection ahead of a two-day conference, the 110th Meeting of ELSAC. The conference, which will start on April 23, is expected to discuss the status of progress in South Korea related to labor law. The ministry's report concluded South Korea's labor-related laws meet international standards.

In the report, the government said, "Progress has been made in labor rights in the 10 years that Korea has been a member of the OECD, including the legalization of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions and granting the right to organize to teachers and public servants." The government urged the OECD to end its monitoring, saying two remaining issues - that of the legality of multiple labor unions at a single company and the ban of companies from paying their union's officials - could be achievable by 2009. In addition, the government said, if the OECD continues to carry out its monitoring, it would send the wrong message to labor groups, who have refused to talk to management or the government, the report said.

On the same day, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) held a press conference with domestic and foreign journalists, calling for the OECD to continue its monitoring.

"If the OECD ends the monitoring without resolving major issues such as multiple labor unions and basic labor rights for public servants, it would present an illusion that the matter of basic labor rights is resolved," the KCTU said in a press release.

While the OECD advises South Korea to allow workers at one company to form multiple labor unions, the government decided through a law revision in last year to ban such a union system until 2010, the KCTU said. In the case of basic labor rights for public servants, higher officials are banned from joining a union and members of the public servants' union are banned from going on strike, it said. In addition, 188 union officials were arrested last year and 114 were arrested in 2005, defying the OECD's advisory that labor-related activities should not be punishable under criminal law, the KCTU said.

Woo Mun-suk, a spokesperson at the KCTU, said, "Despite the international body's monitoring, there has been no change in the government's response. It continues to forcibly close union offices, arrest activists, and seek financial damages against union officials."

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