Unions have not adjusted membership to reflect changing workforce: researcher
The rate of unionization for South Korean workers fell to a historic low of 10.3 percent last year. The Ministry of Labor and the Korea Labor Institute announced that the rate had reduced by 0.3 percentage points from last year’s 10.6 percent. This is the lowest amount seen since 1977, when the figure was first recorded. In 1977, the rate of unionized workers was 25.4 percent. The unionization rate has continuously dropped from 19.8 percent in 1989 to around 12 percent between 1997 and 2001 and around 11 percent in 2002 and 2003. The figure dropped to around 10 percent in 2004. The number of trade unions and their members saw an 0.8 and 2 percentage point decrease, respectively, from last year’s figures.The Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU), one of the two largest umbrella labor groups in the nation, has 3,589 unions and 770,572 members, while the Korea Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) had 1,205 unions and 640,253 members. Meanwhile, the number of independent unions and unionists stood at 1,177 and 93,458, respectively. The Korean Government Employees’ Union (KGEU) which joined the KCTU this year, was excluded from the data. Regarding the declining unionization rate, Eun Su-mi, a researcher at the Korea Labor Institute, said that even though the number of part-time and contract workers has increased, trade unions still revolve around salaried, full-time and male workers. [englishhani@hani.co.kr]
