Comparisons of election pledges by political party : They show the real faces of their pledges

Comparisons of election pledges by political party : They show the real faces of their pledges

Lim Youn OK (Korean Women Workers Association) 

 
Women's work should be respected. This is a real face of the welfare society!

Everyday every political party tries to make general election pledges about job measures, irregular workers and welfare measures, insisting that they are the right party to upgrade the Korean society. However, they seldom focus on 'Women Workers' Issues' although women workers' issues are core and basic issues in this society and women workers are marginalized in this society: irregular women workers accounted for 61.8% of all irregular workers; low-wage women workers who receiving less than 1,200,000 won a month comprises 42.7% of all women workers; women account for 61.5% of those who are paid less than the legal minimum wage. As a result, the wage gap by gender is 38.9%, which means Korea has the worst wage gap by gender amongst OECD countries. These are the real faces of the Korean society. None can suspect that women workers' present situations is the awful fruit of discrimination and prejudices in the society.

Hence, the Korean politicians pay lip service to women workers' issues without establishing any measures. They don't have few measures to save the Korean society. Without demolishing the gender division of labor under which women are supposed to be responsible for house work and child care and men are breadwinners, shorter working hours and decent job creation will come at the end of their ropes. I believe women workers' issues should be well solved so that this is the first step toward the non-discriminatory warm welfare society.


Sensitiveness to women workers' issues: determinants of success or failure in solving labor and welfare issues and authenticities of politicians

Therefore, it is necessary for me to look at and evaluate women's labor related pledges by political party. Since women's labor related pledges is not socially focused, it was expected to find the real face of political parties. That's because people usually dressed up outwardly, but they don't take care of insides well. Women workers' issues can stand for our society's underwears. As we expected, there were big gaps of women's labor related pledges by political party.

I am sure that politicians' responsiveness to women workers' issues is an authentic determinant of success or failure in solving social polarization and poverty issues and their capabilities. I compared by political party, 9 policy tasks in three areas of irregular workers, balancing women's jobs and family matters and women's jobs. According to pledge levels and practicability I scored them using the marks such as ○, △, ×. ○ means very good, △ means okay, and × means poor. The results are shown in the following Table 1.

Table 1. Comparison of women's labor pledges by party

Areas	Policy Tasks	Saenuri	DUP	UPP	LPU	CKP	New Jinbo
Women's jobs	Increasing public influences on care jobs	×	○	○	○	×	△
	Creating decent women's jobs	×	○	○	○	△	○
	Recognizing in-home workers' rights to work	×	○	○	×	×	○
Irregularworkers	Changing all irregular workers' positions to regular workers and stopping the irregular employment in the public sector	△	○	○	△	△	○
	Recognizing indirect workers to be the workers belonging to mother companies and direct employment in the public sector	×	○	○	△	△	○
	Recognizing specially employed workers' rights to work	×	○	○	×	×	○
Balancing women's jobs and Family	Regulating the minimum wage at 50% of overage monthly wages	×	○	○	○	×	○
	Securing maternity leave and maternity leave for irregular workers	×	×	○	△	×	△
	Activating paternity leave	×	○	○	○	×	○

(The above is based on the material papers of pledges for 19th general election by party.)

Saenuri is disinterested and non-capable, having no measures to women's issues

First of all, the Saenuri party is disinterested and non-capable, having no measures to women workers' issues. I looked at the pledge material paper of the party several time, because there is no women-related pledge except the comment for expanding job supports for the women experiencing career discontinuation and women at their 20s and the introduction of coaching system for women at their 60s to design their careers. However, I am doubting if what women at their 60s really need is a career coaching system, and if they know the reality of women aged 60s. In addition, the party likes to voluntarily change employment types through the introduction of public announcement of employment types as a measurement to irregular workers in the private sector. This means they don't want to regulate the use of irregular workers in the private sector.


DUP gains detailed pledges for improving social service jobs

The DUP announced 10 women's pledges under their vision for 'creating the society of gender equality,' which shows their clear differences from the Saenuri Party. Amongst them, the DUP was willing to prepare for wage standards for jobs in the social service sector to create decent women's job in the social service sector. This pledge is a progressive policy as well as a detailed measure for tackling job insecurity and low wage issues in the social service sector. However, considering 2 working women out of three are irregular workers, I felt the lack of the protection of maternity leave and parental leave for irregular women workers. In addition, even regular women workers cannot take maternity leave and parental leave easily due to the gender discriminatory job culture, in reality. Hence, practical measures for addressing this issue is needed.


UPP, prepares pledges for balancing women's jobs and family

The UPP announced labor pledges including the decrease in the number of irregular workers, the regulation of indirect employment and job creation, which is far more detailed and advanced, compared to the DUP, and so it is characteristic that the UPP's pledges are more feasible. In addition, they also included several other good pledges such as the helping of women to balance their jobs and family matter through shorter working hours; the imposing reinforced penalties for the companies which don't observe maternity related laws (in 2011, only 4 company owners were punished in accordance with the existing maternity related laws); and the compulsory permission of 3 month-paternity leave and the activation of paid parental leave. The UPP showed its will to solve women's career discontinuation issues owing to women's pregnancies, child-birth and child-care.

The Liberty Forward Party (LFP) is outstanding in terms of their will to increase and improve social service jobs, announcing that the LFP should improve wages and working conditions of 1,500,000 care service workers and support their social insurance fees, through the establishment of so-called social service public corporation. However, the LFD ignored in-home workers' rights to work, excluding the legal reform for in-home workers from its pledges. The Creative Korea Party didn't provide any additional women's pledges, which shows the lack of detailed pledges for women, although the party basically announced its pledges for women's job policies.


Lastly, it is characteristic that New Jinbo Party provided differentiated women's life-cycle based pledges rather than issue-focused pledges, announcing its 'Women's life changing strategies.' The pledges covering women's life cycles are good points, but they didn't seem to provide their detailed and feasible pledges in terms of pending issues. For example, the New Jinbo Party had an idea to implement the paternal leave quota system during the 50% of the existing parental leave period. However, According to the existing law, men and women workers are able to take one year parental leave, respectively, but their paid parental leave is so little and company's culture is so depressing that workers cannot take the leave. Hence, the pledge by the New Jinbo Party is not much feasible.


The wills to tackle women workers' issue determines progressiveness

As shown the above, I compared 9 women's policy tasks and pledges of 5 political parties for the 19th general election. As you see, the Saenuri Party showed poorest pledges and feasibility, and other political parties varied by different issue. I confirmed that pledges for women workers are determinants of political progressiveness in creating a society in which 99% become happy. Although a person speaks of changes and reforms, if the person is not sensitive to women workers' issues, he or she knows only a half of the social issues in our society, and so the solution the person provides will be only half-solution. I hope voters will make right choice, so I hope we create a happy politics and the politics of housekeeping in which all working women can smile brightly.