By Lee Hyo-sik
Staff Reporter


The government and the ruling Uri Party agreed Wednesday to push the passage of a non-regular workers bill this month, as management and labor have failed to narrow their differences.

The decision is expected to further strain government-labor relations with unionists poised to stage a general strike to block the legislation.

During a policy consultation meeting, the two sides reaffirmed the necessity of passing the bill, unilaterally if necessary, party officials said.

``The ruling party will go ahead with the bill’s passage to help improve working conditions of non-regular workers, despite the unionists’ threat of a general strike,’’ said Rep. Won Hye-young, chief policymaker of the party.

``We cannot fail temporary workers any longer whose livelihood has worsened amid a widening polarization of regular and non-regular workers,’’ Won noted.

Rep. Rhee Mok-hee, chief of the governing party’s policy committee on labor, said it is unfortunate that labor unions decided to stage illegal strikes to protest the bill.

``It would become more difficult to pass the bill next year,’’ he added, indicating the ruling party’s resolve to get the bill through this Assembly session.

The labor-government conflict dated back to November 2004 when the government submitted the bill on temporary workers to the Assembly.

The government-initiated bill was drafted in a bid to protect the rights of non-regular workers while ensuring labor market flexibility.

But voting on the bill has been delayed repeatedly due to protests from unionists.

Both full-time workers and part-timers have strongly opposed the bill, claiming it would lead to an increase in the number of non-regular workers and only serve the interests of employers.

Under the bill, companies hiring short-term contract workers for over three years should employ them as regular workers, and any employer found to be discriminating against non-regular workers will be subject to 100 million won ($96,000) in fine from 2006.

It also prevents unreasonable discrimination against non-regular workers in terms of salary and dismissal.

Workers will be able to apply to government commissions to have their grievances resolved, while companies that fail to fulfill the government’s instructions will face fines of up to 100 million won.

The bill will also allow almost all types of industries to hire contract workers. Firms in 26 industries are permitted to hire such workers.

The number of non-regular workers was estimated at 7.13 million at the end of last year, accounting for 49 percent of the country’s total workers.

Their wages usually stand at about 60 percent of what regular workers make. They can be easily dismissed, as most of them are short-term employees.

Meanwhile, The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) will launch a general strike Thursday as management and labor have failed to narrow their differences on the non-regular worker bill.

Union officials, including those from the KCTU, had a series of working-level meetings this month with representatives of Korea Employers Federation for a consensus on the issue.

The country’s second largest umbrella labor group decided Monday to go ahead with a general strike to demand labor rights for non-regular workers, as 51 percent of its member unionists participated in the vote and 64.2 percent of them voted in favor of strike.

``We criticize the government for raising the number of non-regular workers to help employers reduce labor costs at the expanse of employees’ job security,’’ a KCTU official said.

He added that the group cannot accept the government-sponsored bill, which he insisted would lead to a reduction in the number of regular workers.

The KCTU has some 620,000 members from 744 unions across 18 industrial sectors under its wing.

However, the Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU), the largest umbrella union group, has taken a different approach toward the non-regular worker issue, opposing to the KCTU’s push for a general strike.

It proposed its own revised bill on non-regular workers yesterday to the government and the employer’s groups in an attempt reach a compromise on the issue.

The move is expected to end an alliance of Korea’s two largest labor umbrella groups.

The FKTU suggested that companies be required to hire temporary workers as regular ones if workers stay on the job for more than two years, down from the government’s proposed three years.

It also asked the government to not expand the number of industries that can hire contract workers beyond the current 26.

``We decided to come up with our own revised bill in order to move non-regular worker issue forward,’’ FKTU president Lee Yong-deuk said Wednesday in a press conference.

Lee stressed that the labor community should compromise with the government and management on the issue for the sake of non-regular workers even if its proposal does not meet all of labor’s demands.

leehs@koreatimes.co.kr