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2002-10-28 13:49:22, 조회 : 48 |
International Roundtable on Social Security
Session 111: Women and Social Protection (22-23 Jun 2000)
Social Security for Vulnerable Majority
Maria Rhie Chol Soon
Korea Women Workers' Association United
In the rapidly industrialized countries that are experiencing an economic crisis such as Korea, Indonesia, Hong Kong and the Philippines, job insecurity, unemployment and increasing inequality between the rich and the poor have become widespread social and economic problems. The discourse of global economic competitiveness is used to legitimate worsening working conditions and workers' rights. Thus, government discussions over labor laws in these countries are more focused on how to attract foreign capitals and recover from the economic crisis than how to protect workers' rights and ensure worker's welfare. As a result, workers in these countries are experiencing worse working conditions as well as living conditions, especially due to the absence of adequate social safety nets.
In Indonesia and Korea, particularly, labor laws are being amended to facilitate the smooth implementation of structural adjustment programs. Amidst the current economic crisis, the governments and employers have equated with the policy of increased labor market flexibility and restricted workers' rights for national economic recovery.
For example, in Indonesia, the new Manpower Bill signed in the beginning of 1997 combined all existing labor laws into one bill. In Korea, ignoring tremendous resistance from labor unions and workers, similar labor law amendments were passed in February 1998. In particular, Mass Dismissal Law and Temporary Agency Law not only effectively legalized employers' right to fire workers more easily and employ workers through temporary agencies but they also gave employers the green light to engage in more severe and unfair practices.
Despite the existing restriction on employers' responsibility to make every effort so as to avoid the dismissal of workers and conduct sincere consultation with unions to find alternatives instead of dismissals, the number of cases regarding unfair dismissals has drastically escalated. By the end of last July, reports of unfair dismissals amounted to 873 cases involving 1,610 workers, representing a 4.5 time increase since the same period of the previous year. In addition, many employers are using Mass Dismissal Law as an excuse to fire regular workers and replace them with temporary or part-time workers, even though the working hours required have remained relatively the same.
Moreover, the government's economic transformation efforts are based on the forced sacrifice of workers. Korean government is carrying out the policies of privatization and labor market flexibility to promote a market economy system and attract foreign investment into Korea. This had brought about the current state of massive unemployment in Korea. In February 1999, according to the government's statistics, the unemployment rate stood as 8.7%, with an unemployed population of 17,885,000.
However, the actual unemployed population is believed to be more than 4 million. Those statistics don't include large numbers of women who have given up seeking work for the time being and describe themselves as housewives and even 'the employed' means anyone who has worked for more than one hour in the previous week. In spite of this situation, the government only started an unemployment insurance scheme in 1995.
Poor Social Security Nets
Although Korean people have experienced serious unemployment, social security nets are very thin. The government is forcing workers to shoulder the responsibilities for their unemployment in the current economic crisis. The employment benefit system is very limited in terms of its benefits and duration.
According to the research done by Action Center for Women's Unemployment between June and November 1998, only 2.06 % of women job seekers who took job counseling in the center received employment benefits. Moreover, the government's unemployment policies are patriarchal, so unemployed women are disadvantaged and discriminated. Women are seen as only as secondary wage earners thus women have not been prioritized to receive unemployment insurance or benefits from re-employment policies. Instead, women are expected to step back so that male breadwinners can get help first.
There is some unemployment insurance available for those who worked for companies employing more than 30 workers. However, since the majority of women work in companies with less than 10 employees, (65% of women work at workplace with less than 4 workers where Labor Standard Law is not applicated) they lack access to unemployment insurance. At the same time we have found so many women workers who are heads of their families. Many married women need to work because their husbands' salary was too low to survive. Salaries plunged an average of 30 to 40 % since the onset of IMF bailout crisis. In many cases women are divorced, widowed, or have husbands who are unable to work. According to official statistics from the Ministry of Labor, some 20 % of householders are headed by women.
Young women are favored for clerical and retail jobs, while older women work in assembly and service jobs. As job competition has intensified, women who are older than thirty-five years have found it increasingly difficult to find work. Employers have become more choosy and discriminatory. Some older women have been dismissed from restaurant jobs and replaced by younger women. Yet older women have more burdens for family expenses to meet as their children grow up and need to go to college. At the same time there is no social security, or old age benefits for the elderly in Korea.
As many as 65 % of women workers work in very small companies with less than five workers who are not protected under Labor Standard Law and women workers are the first targets for lay-offs and retrenchment. Women-concentrated departments and jobs are closed, women are forced to leave and regular female workers are forced to work on an irregular basis. Regular women workers' status is reduced to temporary, part-timer, daily or dispatched workers. The majority of part-time workers in Korea are female. According to government statistics, women account for 78.3% of part-timers and their ratio has been rapidly increasing. Furthermore, part-time employment has markedly expanded to the service sector as well as manufacturing sector.
In addition, they do not have an social security or protection; no unemployment insurance, pension scheme, health insurance and occupational injury insurance and maternity protection has also deteriorated.
Women are viewed as secondary earners to men who are sen as bread winners and the foremost targets for dismissals. This patriarchal assumption is incorporated within capitalism and rationalizes that women must be laid off before men. However, in reality, women householders lead 17% of all families in Korean society, revealing patriarchy is just a tool for discrimination, oppression and exploitation against women.
# table 1.
# Benefits of 4 main social insurances
1. Retirement pension : since 60 years old
2. Health care insurance : 70 % of hospital expenses
3. Unemployment insurance
1) younger than 30 years old, having 1 to 3 year working experiences : 50 % of total salary for six months to one year, 90 days allowances
2) from 30 to 50 years old people, having 5 year working experiences : 150 days allowances, skill training for six months, etc
4. Occupational injury insurance : 70 % of salary and 100 % of hospital expenses
Responses
Organizing rate of Korean workers was the highest in 1989 at 18.6%. However, the unionization rate has continued to drop, falling to 11.2% in 1997 since then. A gender disparity exists in organizational rates, too. In 1997 the organization rate of male workers was 16.0% but 6.2 % of women workers were the union members, which shows the very low organizational rate of women workers.
Many women workers in unorganized small companies are being laid off and they have not received their backwages. As many of these women workers are heads of their families, they face extremely difficult situations.
On June 9th 1998, Action Center for Women's Unemployment and 8 regional branches were established as sister agency of KWWAU in order to publicize the seriousness of women's unemployment and to encourage the government to make pro-women policies actively. The Center provides practical assistance to women workers through a variety of programmes such as job counseling, job information, training, surveying and medical help etc. KWWAU organized rallies for women workers' job security and demanded the government to establish women's unemployment prevention and to set up active policies for maintaining employment. We held a rally in front of the headquarter of the ruling party and the National Assembly. By organizing these street rallies once a month, the center is demanding that the government should establish women's unemployment measures.
Medical Assistance
It is a program for the unemployed women family heads and their children under 18 years old through discounting the medical costs. KWWAU and 8 regional associations participated in this project and over 600 medical facilities all over the country took part in it. It has been very helpful for women family heads and their children, who were suffering from financial difficulties. It gave them very practical helps. We issued the medical counseling cards for free health check. The free health check has been launched for those unemployed women heads of families, who can not offer to go to hospital. 520 women family heads received the free health check. We could realize the very serious health conditions of the unemployed women and confirm the importance of the medical service project.
Living Assisting Program
KWWAU with 8 regional branches participated in the support campaign of People's Movement Committee for Overcoming Unemployment. The unemployed women family heads were given gift certificates with the worth of 150,000 Korean Won. Through the campaign, 3,872 unemployed women in total were supported provisional shelter and emergent aid and after school program for their children.
Opening the working women's network on the business network
for the job arrangement.
In order to take care of job seekers and work seekers, the proper management is necessary. A database program has been developed for more effective management. The DB program was made based on the MS ACCESS for two months. The program has eased the management of job seekers and there was a training for operating DB Program. And the working women's network is composed of information part; informations on the job seekers, counseling cases insecurity of employment and the relevant sites on jobs and counseling parts; counseling on gaining jobs and equal rights counseling center's work. The network could make a close approach to the mass.
While we are also pushing the government to implement practical policies, to publicize issues related to unemployment amongst women and to respond pro-actively to recent issues and problems. KWWAU developed a campaign pressuring the government to develope gender sensitive policies to combat rampant discrimination against women in layoffs and unemployment insurance policies. The campaign succeeded in winning a number of temporary jobs for skilled and unskilled women and in changing the unemployment insurance law to expense to smaller establishments workplace (every workplace has to insure if there is more than one worker) where many women are working.
Recently the government started to implement measures for unemployed women, establishing talks with jobless women, providing jobs suitable for women at the second level of public works and setting up job training courses for unemployed women householders (free training with living allowance). These changes in the government attitudes were brought about by our active and strong activities.
Some proposals to the government on the policy for the unemployed women
1. It is necessary to conduct more qualified research on the women's benefits of the government project for the countermeasures of unemployment. In the case of women the condition of labor market, employment structure, and working conditions have not been improved and the insecurity of employment has been escalated. However, their situation has not been exposed in the government statistics. Therefore the research should be implemented based on the perspective of women for a better result in terms of its quality.
2. Besides, various countermeasures for the unemployed women workers are in urgent need. More dynamic and diverse plans should be developed for instance the project for the job creation, various vocational training courses, job arrangement, allowance for the unemployed, employment insurance, or protection living rights.
3. It is very urgent to achieve the basic living rights for those who are under the livelihood protection. The number of the people who cannot maintain the minimum living standard due to the long period unemployment has been increased and the social security network for these people should be urgently established. In the case of the low income family, they are living in a monthly paying rental flat, suffering from various chronic diseases. Immediate countermeasures for their situation are indispensible. They need to get some financial support for maintaining minimum standard of living.( The Assembly made decision on it, passed a bill and the system will start from October 2000).
Established 'Action Center for Restoring Irregular Women Workers' rights' on March 5th
Workers in irregular positions lack legal protection of their basic rights as workers. The Center takes the struggle for the legal protection as its priority and main tasks of the center are following:
1. without any discrimination of employment form, full application of Labor Standard
Law and social insurances
2. full application of Labor Standard Law at workplace with less than 4 workers
3. stop moving regular base to irregular base
4. shortening working hours and guaranteeing three labor rights
5. increase of minimum wage
6. expansion of maternity leave to 90 days and guarantee for the maternity expenses
from the social insurances
7. expansion of social welfare facilities etc.
Establishment of Korean Women's Trade Union (KWTU)
Women's trade union opts for the methodology to seek for the development and improvement of own dignity as a woman. Main activity of KWTU is to improve unequal status of women in a society and workplace due to the difficulties of women as well as to organize irregular women workers into a trade union.
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