hankyoreh

Jeffrey Vogt

By Jeffrey Vogt, chair of the ILAW Network

On Nov. 13, 2020, workers in Korea and worldwide will mark the 50th anniversary of the death of Jeon Tae-il. In the 1960s, he witnessed the brutal exploitation of garment workers, mostly young women, working in the sweatshops of the Seoul Peace Market. These workers were paid poverty wages, exposed to tuberculosis and other diseases and forced to work extremely long hours, made possible by amphetamines.

In the face of indifference by the government and the media, Jeon set himself on fire to attempt to awaken the people to the suffering endured by workers and in so doing ignited the modern Korean labor movement. I came to know his story over many visits to Korea, where I have had the privilege of meeting so many people who work to carry forward his legacy every day. My visit to his grave at the Maseok Moran Memorial Park is a memory I will always carry with me.

Much has changed in the Republic of Korea over 50 years. The country has gone from a largely rural economy to the 12th largest by GDP and home to many well-known global corporations. At the same time, the trade union movement has grown and now represents over 2.3 million workers (11% of the workforce).

However, much has also stayed the same. Korean workers still work extremely long hours — the third longest average hours per year (1,967 hours a year) among the 37 OECD countries. Wages have not kept up with increased productivity, and poverty is particularly high among the youth and the elderly. Millions of workers, largely women, are employed through so-called “non-standard” or “irregular” forms of employment, including dispatch work, subcontracting, short-term contracts and other arrangements, and as a result earn far less than workers doing the same or similar work on standard contracts. Deeply entrenched sexism results in Korea ranking among the worst with regard to wage discrimination between women and men.

There are many things that the Republic of Korea could do now to begin to address these long-standing problems. The first could be to fully respect the rights to freedom of association and to bargain collectively. The Republic of Korea remains one of the very few countries which have ratified neither International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 87, on the right to freedom of association, nor Convention 98, on the right to bargain collectively. These rights are recognized as “fundamental” by the 1998 ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. This declaration provides that all countries have an obligation to “respect, promote and realize” these fundamental rights, even if they have not ratified the relevant convention.

But the centrality of the right to freedom of association, including to strike, and to bargain collectively, goes back to the very founding of the ILO in 1919. That ILO constitution, drafted among the ruins of World War I, recognized that there would be no peace without social justice and that freedom of association was necessary for its realization. The importance of these fundamental rights was again confirmed by the 1944 Declaration of Philadelphia, during World War II, which stated that “freedom of expression and of association are essential to sustained progress.”

The current government has promised to ratify these two conventions but has not yet done so. In addition, the Trade Union Labor Relations Adjustment Act (TULRAA) remains far out of compliance with Convention 87, as numerous ILO reports have affirmed. Indeed, the government’s failure to address these issues has led to an international trade dispute between the European Union and the Republic of Korea under the Sustainable Development Chapter of the EU-Korea Free Trade Agreement. An expert panel will render a decision in late November 2020 as to whether the government has violated the agreement, as it most certainly has, and what steps it should take therefore to comply. The US-Korea FTA (“KORUS”) contains similar obligations to respect fundamental rights.

Earlier this year, the government did promise that it would ratify these two conventions. However, it proposed companion legislation that would not only fail to bring the TULRAA into compliance with the conventions but would in fact severely weaken labor laws in many important respects. The bill would ban certain kinds of strikes and would require the term of collective agreements to be three years to reduce the frequency of negotiations.

These amendments are in serious violations of Conventions 87 and 98. Further, the government has proposed the expansion of flexible working time, which could lead to significantly more hours of work. Under current law, the maximum workweek is 52 hours and an employer may average the hours over a three-month period. Under the proposal, the reference period for determining average work time would double to six months, which would grant employers more power to extend the workweek well beyond the 52-hour maximum.

The government must ratify these conventions and finally bring its laws into compliance with international law.

At the same time, it is critical that all workers without distinction have the right to freedom of association. A new bill, named after Jeon, would amend the definition of “worker” and “employer” to put an end to the various means of misclassification of the employment relationship which have divested workers of their right to associate or to associate with their actual employer (instead of with intermediaries that have been established to break the employment relationship and thus drive down wages and working conditions). This would also be consistent with the legal trend worldwide. A growing number of legislatures and high courts have recognized that these concepts must be expanded to encompass the multiplicity of work relationships in order to afford workers their rights and prevent the beneficiaries of workers’ labor from avoiding their responsibilities. The government should take the opportunity of the upcoming anniversary of the death of Jeon Tae-il to extend in law the right of all workers to associate freely. This would be the most meaningful tribute to his memory.

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