hankyoreh

By Im In-taek and Eum Sung-won, staff reporters

The Park Geun-hye administration has begun the process of revoking the status of the Korean Teachers and Education Workers’ Union (KTU) over the enrollment of dismissed teachers.

Now, twenty-four years after its 1989 formation and ten years after its 1999 legalization, the KTU stands to return to being an “outsider union.”

The Ministry of Employment and Labor announced at a Sept. 23 press briefing that the KTU had been “asked to revise illegal regulations permitting the membership of dismissed individuals.”

It also said the union had been notified that its status would be revoked if it failed to comply.

The ministry explained that it had previously urged the KTU to revise its regulations and address the issue of activities by dismissed educators at two meetings in May and June.

“The violations by KTU have been going on for more than three years, and we concluded we could no longer wait for it to take corrective action by itself,” the ministry said.

The ministry plans to revoke the union’s status if it does not comply with the demand for corrective action within the next month.

Observers in the labor community believe the Park administration’s decision is a sign that it plans to tackle unions head on. Last month, an establishment notification from the Korean Government Employees’ Union was rejected on similar grounds. Now the administration is taking active steps to outlaw an existing union.

“The Ministry of Employment and Labor just said they were coming for talks today, and then out of nowhere they told us they were revoking our status,” said KTU spokesman Ha Byeong-su on Sept. 23.

“This is not an appropriate way to do things when you’ve made it seem like there will be a process of discussing the matter and getting public support,” Ha added.

The issue of unions enrolling workers who have been fired from their jobs first became a sticking point under Park’s predecessor, Lee Myung-bak. Since Mar. 2010, the Ministry of Employment and Labor has twice ordered the KTU to revise its regulations. Neither time did it say that failure to comply would result in its status being revoked.

Indeed, Kim Kyung-woon, head of the ministry’s public official and labor-management relations division, said at the Sept. 23 press briefing that it was “taking a more proactive approach than before” to demanding corrective action from the KTU.

“As per the enforcement degree for the Trade Union Act, failure to comply by Oct. 23 will result in the union being declared ‘no longer a union,’” Kim said.

Critics accused the ministry of being “hard on workers, soft on business” in its enforcement of the law. Indeed, the latest action could be read as part of a more general trend of pro-business, anti-union measures.

One controversial example happened back in July, when the ministry decided not to press charges against E-Mart CEO Hur Inn-chul and vice chairman Chung Yong-jin - the retailer’s chief decision-maker on personnel and labor issues - after an investigation uncovered signs of union suppression and other unfair labor practices. At the time, critics accused the ministry of “turning a blind eye” to business abuses.

Last week, the ministry concluded two months of monitoring of Samsung SVC for illegal dispatch worker employment and “camouflaged outsourcing” with a decision to let the company off the hook.

“There may be grounds for dispute, but on the whole there was no basis for concluding that illegal dispatch employment was taking place,” it said at the time.

Meanwhile, the ministry has also been increasing its pressure on labor. The surprise rejection of the KGEU notice last month came after behind-the-scenes negotiations during the first half of the year that seemed to suggest the union was on its way to legalization. The ministry also rejected a National Human Rights Commission recommendation for more specific legal guidelines on downsizing.

During the first half of 2013, the Park administration remained quiet on the issue of labor policy. Many experts said it spent that time settling on a militant stance against unions.

“The international standard has been to practically recognize the freedom of association - of the three basic labor rights - for all workers [including those who have been dismissed], and the fact that the Park administration is planning to revoke a union’s status over this is a sign that it’s going after the unions with both barrels,” said Cho Don-mun, a professor of sociology at the Catholic University of Korea.

“[Minister of Employment and Labor] Bang Ha-nam could have approached this issue rationally and through dialogue, but now it looks like he’s just following whatever the Blue House orders,” Cho added.

During its seventh congress in Kuala Lumpur on Sept. 20, Education International - Asia Pacific (EIAP) adopted a resolution strongly urging the South Korean government to stop its threats to revoke the KTU’s status.

The KTU responded to the ministry’s actions by calling the threat “yet more evidence of an anti-human rights denial of union organization rights without precedent in the international community.”

It also said it planned to decide on a plan of action at a representatives’ meeting on Sept. 28, including a possible “full-scale battle.”

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