Labor : Society : News : The Hankyoreh

On the 14th, President Yoon Seok-yeol ordered, “Listen carefully to the various views of workers expressed during the legislative notice period, especially the views of the MZ generation, and review the details of the bill and the points to be added publicly . communicate.” The ‘Working Time System Reform Plan’ (reform plan), which was first incorporated as an amendment to the Labor Standards Act among Yoon Seok-yeol’s ‘labor reforms’, was revised after about a week of legislation. notice on the 6th. This is because the reorganization plan was designed without fully considering the reality of the workplace, which can cause overwork and long hours, and face the anger of ordinary office workers. Aware of this, with President Yoon’s supplementary instructions as an opportunity, voices are emerging that we need to look back on promoting labor reforms that focus on experts that do not reflect the voices of the labor field. The reorganization plan includes the expansion of overtime management units so that the weekly working hours can be increased from a maximum of 52 hours to a maximum of 80.5 hours (7 days a week, 69 hours a week, 69 hours). Most of the other major measures came from a recommendation published by the Society for Future Labor Market Research in December last year. The Future Labor Market Research Association, which claimed to be an expert deliberative body for labor market reform, consisted of only 12 scholars (teachers). The core content of the reorganization plan, ‘work focused and rest when you rest’, started from the will of the president, who was mentioned for his comments that “you have to work hard 120 hours a week” during the election campaign presidential, and it was confirmed as a government law reform bill through an expert committee that looks like In this process, the views of workers, who are interested parties, have been alienated, and the reality is not office workers can even use the existing annual leave, and the complex working conditions for operating the system have not been fully considered. The government reorganized other ‘labour reform’ agendas, such as reorganizing wage systems (Win-Win Wages Committee) and improving labor practices such as the transparency of trade union accounting (expert advisory council to improve unreasonable labor practices), through an expert committee with little participation. by the parties representing the syllabus A plan is being prepared.

‘Workers’ anger’ at the government’s announcement focused first on the fact that the reorganization plan based on expert negotiations was “unrealistic.” In fact where even holidays guaranteed by law are not enjoyed, it is difficult to implement ‘taking time off’. Cases of ‘massaging my boss to get me in the mood to spend my annual holidays’ and ‘being insulted for how many years I’ve been at work’ elicited sympathy. The diverse and poor ‘real workplaces’, where the system is difficult to implement, were not reflected in the process of preparing the reform bill, which exploded into strong public opinion only after the legislative announcement. Prior to the legislative notice, the government held a ‘public debate on reforming the working hours system’ on February 24, but even in this process, the voices of the wider workforce were not reflected. At the time, only academic experts took part in the discussions, with the exception of the Renewal Workers Council, known as the MZ generation union. President Yoon emphasized on this day, “Listen carefully to the opinion of the MZ generation.” However, in reality, the workers who are in the blind spot of the right to rest guaranteed by law are small businesses, subcontractors, and irregular workers distributed across all generations. According to the results of a recent survey of 1,000 office workers by Workplace Gapjil 119, half of the respondents said they could not use their annual leave freely, especially if they worked for less than 1.5 million won per month (55.6%) or on a workplace with less than 5 employees (49.4%) It was close. Lee Byeong-hoon, professor of sociology at Chung-Ang University, said, “The labor system must actually be implemented in the end, but since it is impossible to identify side effects or concerns (according to the reorganization of the system) which will happen in diverse and complex labor sites only through expert discussions, it is necessary that I have to talk to the workers,” he said.

In the process of preparing the reform plan, the measures for workers’ right to rest, right to choose, and right to health were supported after controversy arose over concerns about long working hours and infringement of the right to health. Debate over the ‘labour market structural reform plan’ announced by the government in June last year that it is possible to work up to 92 hours a week, late announcing that they are discussing 11 consecutive hours of rest. In this way, the announcement of the system → controversial → attachment continues again and again. In particular, the systems which guarantee the right of employees to choose their working hours were criticized for not being effective in the reorganization plan or for being research tasks only. For example, the institutionalization of the employee representation system does not solve the problem of ’employee representation on the company side’ because there is no ‘penalty clause’ in case the employer intervenes in the electoral process. Transparent management of working hours, expressed by the government itself as a ‘preliminary task’, was also left as a research task. This contrasts with the plan to expand the number of overtime hours, a request mainly from the management community, in order to make working hours more flexible. Park Jeom-kyu, a member of the Gapjil 119 Workplace Steering Committee, said, “Only when the prerequisites such as strengthening the bargaining power of non-union employees through the employee representation system, prohibiting the comprehensive wage system, and requiring . mandatory for employers to record working hours that the powers of employees and companies are equal. “We can talk about the right to choose working hours,” he said.

The government explained that once the reorganization plan is implemented, it will reduce the ‘actual annual working hours’ by reducing the overtime hours available quarterly and annually. However, as a maximum of 80.5 hours of work per week was possible, the reform plan was considered to return to the overworked society where ‘long hours’ were common. Furthermore, it is difficult to sympathize with the government’s argument that workers driven by difficulties in using holidays, emergency work, and unpredictable work schedules strengthen their ‘right to choose’ as a reform scheme. The 52 hour maximum working week system introduced in 2018 has reduced actual working hours by controlling weekly working hours. Employees working over 52 hours per week, which reached 2,447,000 in 2017, before the implementation of the 52-hour week, fell by less than half to 1,001,000 in 2021, and annual working hours fell accordingly from 2018 to 1,915 hours. Lee Ji-hyeon, spokesperson for the Korea Federation of Trade Unions, said, “In a society where reducing working hours has become mainstream, it was natural that there was a strong backlash against the retroactive policy that suddenly turned to low wages . and long hours.” The impact of not being reflected was great.” The government announced very late that it would start collecting opinions on the reform plan. However, he dismissed concerns about the reform plan as a misunderstanding. On this day, the Ministry of Employment and Labor issued a statement saying, “There is a misunderstanding based on some unrealistic assumptions regarding the reorganization plan.” Correspondent Bang Jun-ho whorun@hani.co.kr