[Editorial] Protecting the Rights of Subcontract Workers

It is meaningful to have the National Labor Relations Committee (NLRC) say that the negotiation partner for unions of subcontractors working within a different company is that outsourcing company. So far the courts have said that no direct form of employment exists between the outsourcing company and a union of workers sent to work there by a subcontractor, and labor relations committees have taken the same position. The union of subcontractor employees at Hyundai Heavy Industries filed a complaint against Hyundai for wrongful labor practices, but the Busan Regional Labor Relations Committee did not recognize the complaint as valid.

The NLRC's position is reasonable because of the common sense of it. Anyone how knows how things are knows that it is the outsourcing company that exercises actual influence over the working conditions of a subcontractor's workers. The problem has been that the concept of "employer" has been strictly limited by the formal definitions and thereby effectively aided the suppression of labor rights. You can see it in this latest case decided by the NLRC. When the union of subcontract workers at Hyundai Heavy Industries filed with the Dong-gu government office in Ulsan in August 2003 to formally establish a union, Hyundai laid off its members by closing down the subcontractor. Hyundai is no great exception. No small number of conglomerates have openly suppressed their subcontract workers' unions by cleverly avoiding the grip of the law.

As the NLRC explains in its finding, however, wrongful labor practices are a fundamental denial of basic labor rights. It is therefore logically right to determine the concept of "employer" (sayongja) based in the stark reality of labor conditions. According to the NLRC, the employer in this case should not be seen as the party in the labor contract, it should be seen as "the party that is in a position to exert actual influence or control" over conditions. Indeed, did it not immediately result in a weakening of labor activities when Hyundai discontinued its project with the subcontractor and in doing so have the subcontract workers laid off? NLRC has determined Hyundai to be the employer, so it should take the opportunity to investigate wrongful labor practices there. We hope to see its decision be a major turning point in the protection of the basic rights of subcontract workers, especially in a time when there is a rapid number of irregular and illegally dispatched workers.

The Hankyoreh, 9 April 2005.

[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]