Korean women workers' forum held for realizing equal pay for work of equal value and gender sensitive job evaluation

Korean women workers' forum held for realizing equal pay for work of equal value and gender sensitive job evaluation

On May 7th, 2008,  Korean Women Workers Association(KWWA) and Korean Women's Trade Union (KWTU) organized the first Korean women workers' forum entitled "comparative analysis of wage discrimination  prevention systems in the U.S. and U.K. and their implications to Korea", in order to achieve equal pay for work of equal value and gender sensitive job evaluation (presented by professor Oh Kye Taek) at KWWA's seminar room. In this forum, U.S. and U.K.'s legal basis and operating organizations of equal pay for work of equal value, legal explanation and evaluation methods regarding equal pay for work of equal value.

In this forum, we at KWWA focused on the explanation of equal pay for work of equal value and job evaluation methods. In term of the explanation of equal pay for work of equal value, the U.S. does not view equal work not as the exactly same work but as "practically same work." In the U.K. equal work is seen as the same work or similar work. Both of the U.S. and U.K. use job evaluation as an very important tool. In the U.K. it is recommended the result of job evaluation, if the result is adequate enough. However, in the U.S. job details and interviews with employees are used to decide to equal work. But there is a room for employers' thought to be considered, according to the result of job evaluation. In conclusion the professor Oh claimed we should understand the limitation of job evaluation. Job evaluation is subjective because it decides how much people are paid, through assessing the value of work. If someone can control the processes of job evaluation, it means he can affect the result (about the value of work, wages and others). In the U.S. in the process of job evaluation it is recommended that different parties (including trade unions, representatives of workers, and/ or professionals) should take part in the job evaluation.

KWWA had a good time to think over how to realize equal pay for work of equal value in the Korean society, through looking at interpretation of the meaning of equal pay for work of equal value and evaluation methods in the two nations in this forum.