<5th Labor Forum: discussing the law-making regarding specially hired workers’ issues>

 

5^th Labor Forum: discussing the law-making regarding specially hired workers’ issues (presented by Kim Jin, a lawyer)

 

The death of Park Jong-tae belonging to the Korean Transportation Workers’ Trade Union played a crucial role in drawing attention to specially hired workers’ issues again that had subsided. The current government has not taken any alternative measures for specially hired workers.  What is worse, the current government has driven specially hired workers into a tight corner when we look at the government’s policy that it does not recognize 88CC union belonging to the KWTU and dismissed union members.  Presently, specially hired workers were ranked third after fixed-term workers and part-timers, and women constituted a higher ratio: specially hired women workers accounted for 5.9% and men 2.2% of all the workers (2008, Korea Labor & Society Institute). This shows women should not ignore issues of specially hired workers.

 

In this labor forum, to draw more attention to issues of specially hired employment, proposals made by the Democratic Party and the Democratic Labor Party were looked at carefully.

 

According to the proposal made by the Democratic Party (especially by Kim Sanghee),  written contracts, payment, and annual leaves which are the core of the Labor Standard Law are recognized and the trade union act should be applied for. The proposal made by the Democratic Labor Party (especially by Hong Heeduck) expands the concepts of workers and users in the Labor Standard Law and Trade Union Act.  Presently, the two proposals concerning specially hired employment are pending in the Labor Environment Committee of the National Assembly.  The KWWA and KWTU have decided to search for the ways to address the matters of specially hired employment through other discussions.