Top labor union returns to negotiating table

The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) has approved proposed tripartite negotiations involving labor, management and the government. The meetings will focus on issues such as allowing multiple workers’ unions, reforming labor-management relations and addressing problems faced by contract workers.

The KCTU, the country’s largest umbrella labor group, returns to the tripartite negotiations for the first time in six months, when it negotiated a bill regarding contract workers.

The KCTU held standing committee meetings May 9-10, where it mapped out its proposed participation in the meetings, which will also involve the Korea Employers Federation (KEF), the Korea Chamber of Commerce & Industry and the Ministry of Labor. The KCTU announced May 10 it would make its final decisions regarding its stance for the talks at a central committee meeting to be held May 16. The union decided to return to the negotiation table to push for contract workers’ rights, calling the government’s reform plan push "one-sided."

“The plan that the government is pushing ahead with will only worsen labor-management relations,” said Kim Myeong-ho, an official from the union. “In order to change current underdeveloped labor-management relations into democratic ones, labor, management, and government must sit together and suggest their own plans. There needs to be serious dialogue.”

The KCTU said it will decide upon its demands as soon as possible after coordinating the opinions of its members. The tripartite talks are expected to begin around the time of the May 31 regional elections.

With the KCTU deciding to return to the negotiating table, observers anticipate the tripartite talks to again become active, two-and-a-half years after the government announced its plan to reform labor-management relations. However, as in the government’s bill on contract workers, the positions of labor, management, and government are in conflict over nearly every issue to be brought to the fore.

In the meantime, the Ministry of Labor said it plans to draft related laws at a regular session of the National Assembly to be held in September, and said it will complete discussions on the laws in a tripartite meeting to be held by the end of June.