Irregular workers at Hyundai Motors have been on a sit-in there for 45 days now, and yet instead of attempting dialogue the management is aggravating the situation with mass layoff and a compensation lawsuit. It brings up questions about the sit-in's legality, but that is a clear distortion of the sequence through which things unfolded. The decisive reason irregular workers began their sit-in was because of Hyundai's illegal use of irregular labor.
The Labor Ministry has formally judged that approximately 9,000 workers are working at Hyundai Motors illegally. The problem is that while the government applies strict standards towards the workers it has consistently been easy on illegal actions on the part of management. It is doing nothing to improve the situation and leaves it to the parties involved, even after it has judged that the management engaged in illegal activity. Not all responsibility can be placed on the ministry, however, where officials have been saying they feel frustrated. But it is a fact that it reported the management to the police for submitting an "improvement plan for total conversion to contract work" that was inadequate, and so it might claim it had done enough. Not in the workers' analysis, however. Kumho Tires is experiencing a similar situation, and when the ministry ordered it to submit plans for improvement it decided that irregular workers working illegally would all be given regular contracts The ministry is therefore largely trying to avoid the issue by not getting involved ever since Hyundai Motors was first reported to police. The management is not doing anything, citing the "ongoing police investigation." You get the feeling that the country's labor policy is the jurisdiction of the police.
What little hope irregulars at Hyundai Motors have is to be found in the fact that the regular workers' union has been engaging in a constant solidarity struggle. The management, meanwhile, continues to react emotionally, as seen in the way it talks of cutting off water and electricity and forcibly took the head of the irregular union off of company property in order to hand him to police. You have to wonder what the Labor Ministry exists for at all when it there's "nothing for it to do" despite the situation. We call on it to wake up.
The Hankyoreh, 4 March 2005.
[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]
[Editorial] Gov't Political Will Key to Hyundai Motors |
