A press conference to call for job countermeasures for women from vulnerable classes driven out onto the verge of unemployment

 

 

On December 10, 2009, A ‘press conference to oppose the decrease in budget for social service jobs and call for job countermeasures for women from vulnerable classes’ was hosted by the Korean Care workers NGO Network (composed of by KWWA, People's Solidarity Against Unemployment, Woman Resources Development Centers, Korean Association of Self Sufficiency Promotion, and YMCA Korea).

 

The Ministry of Labor handed in a budget bill for 2010 which shows large reduction in its supports to social public jobs to 148.7 billion won, by 21.1% compared to those for 2009. Owing to such a reduction plan, the existing social public job projects were mostly excluded and eliminated in the process of the examination and re-examination of social public job projects which have been undertaken since December. As a result, the actual 2 year projects to support social enterprises are left out or have to largely reduce their necessary personnel just around the point of 1 year fulfillment of these projects.

 

According to 2009 Guidelines for the Exploration of Preliminary Social Enterprises, there was a stipulation that the supports should be stopped if a social enterprise cannot reach a certain ratio of the sales or target sales compared to its total support for one year before the date when the Ministry makes its announcement. However, the government suddenly changed its re-examination standards to ‘by the month before the re-examination was carried out.’ Due to the changed clause, more than a half of the existing projects in the Gwangju and South Cholla Province cannot apply to the re-examination.

While the Ministry of Labor had agreed to support the 2 year social public job projects to assist authorized social enterprises, without any specific reasons it excluded and eliminated social enterprises that have applied to the scheme, and so it is true to doubt if the Ministry is willing to cultivate social enterprises. Moreover, its unclear administration processes such as unfair changes in examination standards, unclear stipulation on the reasons for the exclusion, and the undisclosed selected organizations have driven us more in confusion and puzzles. In particular, due to the concentration of the rejected projects mostly in the care service sector, livelihood of the women from vulnerable classes was highly threatened. That is because they were on the verge of unemployment without any time for them to prepare.

 

l     Which way should we take:

Korean Care workers NGO Network designed to expand care service into the society and guarantee women’s safe jobs held a press conference to complain about the unfair treatment, oppose the deduction in the budget bill as to social public job projects, and demand the government to set up countermeasures to women’s jobs.

 

In her prostectus, Kim Jeong-yeon, chairperson of PWWA deplored the matter, saying “On November 30, 2009, 26 women from vulnerable classes became unemployed, who had joined social public job offered by the Ministry of Labor.  They were care workers who had received the real wage of 773,320 won, just minimum wages less than 800,000 won, when their wages were deducted from the payment of the major 4 social insurances.

 

Through its visiting childcare project, PWWA had provided night childcare service for children in low income family neglected at night. She also emphasized that the one-sided reduction in the number of social public jobs by the Ministry of Labor has resulted in the unemployment amongst the participants in the project, and that this would neglect children of two paycheck couples from low income classes without any measures.

 

l     Is it that difficult to give the minimum wages to women?

It was really embarrassing for a participant to receive a notice that her contract had been expired just 3 days before her contract was really expired, without giving any time to make preparation. She gave her speech, saying “Even though I am in trouble, I cannot have been sleeping for several days because I am concerned about the child of that single parent that I have taken care of.” She was proud of her job although her job was very difficult since she was sent to a single parent family as a childcare worker. However, she was resentful of unemployment situation of her and her coworkers. She gave full release of her anger and thought if the government’s policies would lead them to all the unemployment.

 

Hong Hee-duk, a congressman of the Democratic Labor Party who took part in the press conference expressed his view: he was very sorry as a congressman belonging to the Environment-and-labor Commission that he just knew about the unreasonable reasons for the exclusion by the Ministry of Labor and the too speedy unfair treatment. He stated that the budget for the 4 major river restoration project was passed in the Budge and Account Committee, but the budget used by the Ministry of Labor is under examination. He was angry about the reality that the reduction in the budget for the 4 major river restoration is not made at all, while the government gets rid of jobs of those working to look after children of vulnerable single parent families.  He promised his effort to correct the wrong policy in the budget examination of the Ministry of Labor.

 

Although it was raining, a lot of participants engaged in the social public jobs and driven into the same abyss of unemployment got together to demand the government’s countermeasures. All the participants joined a performance and ended up the press conference: they ripped the papers in which bad policies such as the reduction in the budget for social public jobs were written and threw them into the basket, and instead, they dropped into the basket, the placards containing our wishes such as ▲ achieving a sufficient budget for social public jobs and ▲ setting up measures for women’s jobs.