[Editorial] Companies Not Carrying Through on Labor Agreements

There are many times when a government agency intervenes in disputes between workers and their employer and facilitates the creation of compromises. The national government sees having labor, business, and government negotiate agreement as a desirable way to resolve labor disputes and has actively pursued that approach. Employers are not against the approach, and public opinion is relatively favorable.

The problem is that many times it looks on the surface that issues have been resolved peacefully but in actuality companies are either only partially honoring the items that were agreed to or ignoring them completely. Such is the case with Hyundai Hysco, which last year was the focus of attention because of the issue of irregular workers. Currently irregular workers at a company it works with are engaged in a sit-in. The mayor of Suncheon and the head of the Gwangju regional labor administration got involved and got an agreement, but after things were "resolved" the company almost completely reneged on the main points. The Shinhan Financial Group is not following through with the agreement it made with its workers and the government at the time of the merger between Shinhan and Chohung banks. Workers who believed in the government are paying dearly for having done so.

The situation being what it is, all the talk about building trust between labor and business ends up just being like a shiny apricot. With agreements mediated by the government turning out to be no more than scraps of paper there are going to be few workers who believe business leaders or the government when they talk about "co-prosperity." It is not hard to see that this behavior on the part of companies will only foster union animosity and make for more aggravated confrontation. That is not in companies' long-term interest.

Government mediation can be one way to achieve amicable resolution to disputes at a time when the country still lacks a culture of rational negotiation and the legal and structural framework for guaranteeing equal labor/employer negotiating positions. The problem is that the government only takes interest in the actual agreement and then stands back and watches as companies fail to carry through. That ends up hurting workers who agree to government mediation proposals more than those who never agree at all. If the government is serious about establishing healthy labor-management relations, it needs to make companies face consequences when they fail to follow through on what they agree to.

The Hankyoreh, 20 January 2006.

[Translations by Seoul Selection]