hankyoreh

July 3.

Study results have emerged showing that some 57 percent of irregular workers at public corporations had their contracts terminated after two years on the job.

The Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU) said Sunday their study conducted through its 25 member unions on employment changes since the Irregular Worker Law went into effect reveals that 73 public institutions terminated the contracts of 217 of their 379 workers (57.3 percent) who had been working for two years as of June 30. The companies would have been required to offer the laborers a regular employment contract on July 1. This represents a portion of the 6,945 irregular workers employed at these institutions.

Kang Chung-ho, a FKTU spokesman, says public institutions are taking the lead in laying off their irregular workers instead of serving as models for protecting irregular workers and offering them regular worker contracts. Kang says the government needs to work to protect these workers rather than working to extend the grace period on employing irregular workers.

The study reveals that the Korea Land Corporation (145), Korea National Housing Corporation (31), Korea Expressway Corporation (22) and Korea Polytechnics (19) laid off all of their irregular workers scheduled to become regular workers.

Meanwhile, the FKTU said Daegu Metropolitan City Facilities Management Corporation has not distributed pink slips to its irregular workers, virtually changing the status of 100 irregular workers, who work as parking lot attendants and the like, to regular workers. The FKTU also found that the Suwon City Facilities Management Corporation, meanwhile, plans to change its 30 irregular workers into regular workers.

The FKTU said it was only at public corporation unions that irregular workers have experienced sudden dismissals. It said the recent mass lay-offs of irregular workers at public corporations have its roots in the administration‘s one-sided public corporation policies. As a countermeasure, the FKTU established headquarters to anchor a joint struggle in the public sector on July 2, and plans to hold a rally of public-sector unions with the participation of some 20,000 unionists on July 18. The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions’ (KCTU) public transportation union alliance plans to carry out its own investigation of the termination of contracts of irregular workers. KCTU spokesman Lee Seung-chul said public corporations should be models of labor-management relations, but if they unilaterally layoff workers as a legitimate way to avoid compliance with the law, the layoffs would expand in the private sector, too.

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