Lately, at a community center, I have met a woman worker in charge of social work who as a part-time contract public servant. Civil servants for social work has been employed as part-time contract civil servants on the ground that work for social welfare is increasing but budget for the work is not enough. Working condition of these workers is inadequate. They are working 7 hours a day, 35hours a week. However their salary is only 1.3 million won which is 7 eighths of basic pay of permanent counterpart and there is no holiday bonus for part-time civil servants. Overtime work is counted up to 10 hours a month. So even though they work 40hours a month as overtime work, there won’t be any compensation for that. The person concerned said it is her wish to work as a full-time contract civil servant, not as a part-timer. Highly educated women workers are exploited under name of part-time contract civil servant, which is a discriminatory occupational category and is poorer than fixed-term workers is.
Nevertheless, the government announced that it will create 16,500 part-time jobs in public sector in order to achieve 70% employment rate. 4,000 for civil servants, 3,500 for public school teachers and 9000 for public institutions. Concerned about low response, government says that it would consider allowing profit-seeking activity and holding another job. There is no guarantee that there is no civil servant working as a civil servant in the morning and working at a place of entertainment in the afternoon. It would be very difficult to expect for them to be responsible to public work and implement public value.
Also, government said that it would financially support small and medium enterprise for 100% owner’s share of unemployment insurance and national pension and 50% of personnel expenses in order to create part-time jobs by using 10 billion won from people’s tax and 22.7 billion won from unemployment insurance. In response to this government policy, Samsung, LG, and SK announced their plan to expand part-time employment. However, It is highly questionable to use people’s tax and unemployment insurance for employment of private enterprise and whether the job would be secured after the support is ended. Moreover the 2014 budget bill submitted by the Ministry of Employment and Labor shows that the budget for part-time personnel has been spent by only 50% in 2012 and 2013, which means the response to part-time job policy is low. It has been come to light at government audit that part-time jobs created with financial support by government is not better but on the level of other part-time job like working at a coffee shop.
This is not the only problem. Recently, a local government said it would dismiss 28 visiting nurses, who had been selected to convert to permanent-contract position, and hire them again as part-time contract civil servants, arousing public criticism. In case of fixed-term contract, visiting nurses must be converted to permanent-contract position after 2 years of employment. To avoid this conversion and on the ground of lack of budget, the government tries to lay off all 28 visiting nurses and employ them again as new hire of part-time contract civil servants. It shows that part-time jobs are wrongfully used to evade conversion to permanent position indeed.
Women accounts for 73.1% of total part-time jobs as ever. The average wage of part-time job is 650,000 KRW. Looking at coverage rate of social insurance, rate for national pension and unemployment insurance is only 13.9% and 16.3% respectively, which show these part-time jobs are very poor in the sense that the Labor Standard Act is not secured to them. Nonetheless, instead of taking measures to enhance working condition in labor market, government spread false information as if part-time jobs are jobs for women under the name of ‘work-life balance’. However women don’t want part-time jobs but want decent jobs which they pursue stable income and self-fulfillment through.
The worst feature of irregular workers is instability. Even though government insists part-time jobs are desirable and are regular position, it is almost impossible that part-time jobs are stable income source. Moreover, it can’t be changed that part-time jobs are irregular jobs with even rhetoric for part-time job to be considered nicely.
“I do not want something that my wage surges remarkably. Rather, I thought if government considers someone like us, it would be of help to heart.” a part-time public servant women worker say.
If considering such mind of woman worker, government should not push a policy to expand part-time job, but put more effort to conversion to permanent position for irregular worker who are discriminated badly. Part-time job would be used wrongfully to reduce regular position and as a tool to avoid conversion to permanent position. Government should face up to the reality that part-time jobs, government try to create more, are just as another type of irregular position where workers can’t help working as lifelong part-timer.