June 7, 2012, at 11 A.M. women and/or labor NGOs calling for the minimum wage of 5,600 won for 2013 held a press conference at the Seoul Station. The press conference was organized by the Women’s Action for Decent Lives and Jobs (WADLJ), a solidarity meeting of women workers' NGOs. Kwon Mee-hyuk, a standing chairperson of Korean Women’s Associations United (KWAU) started her address, saying "The minimum wage should rise to 5,600 won. This is the minimum demand by women workers." She also showed her iron will for the attaining of the minimum wage of 5,600 won an hour.

 

Next, women workers receiving the minimum wage gave their speeches. Kwon Soon-hee, a cleaning worker at a court said "I work hard, but my wage is very small. I and my family scrape a bare living with less than 1 million won a month. It is difficult to have another hope in such a condition. Although I have had hopes for the minimum wage rise in these seasons, I have let out a deep sigh at the decisions. It is frustrating if we have to have a hard time for another year." She questioned, "What should we do?"

 

Ha Jo-nam, a subcontracted cleaning worker at Sogang University, receiving the minimum wage claimed "Do you know how much a soup is nowadays? Our hour wage is less than a soup price. Don't you think we, women workers, should be paid as high as we work?" and raised her voice, saying "What is the government doing? Don't you hear women workers' screaming? Listen to our women workers' cries, resentment, and hopes." She resolved to continue her struggles at any cost until the moment when women workers can receive fair and decent wages.

 

Lastly, all participants joined a card section, 'YES, the minimum wage of 5,600 won!' to show their hope for the minimum wage increase.

 

 

<Statement>

“The minimum wage is women's issues and it shows the quality of our society."

Now, we demand the minimum wage of 5,600 won per hour which will be applied in 2013. In our society, women's labor is marginalized to maintain the existing status quo. Korea has the biggest wage gap between men and women amongst 30 OECD countries, and two Korean women out of 3 are irregular workers.

 

According to the statistics in 2012, regular women workers receive 66.3% of male regular workers' wages, and what is worse, irregular women workers' wages accounted for 39.6%. In addition, the income bracket receiving less than the minimum wage accounted for 9.4% in 2011, with their total number of 2,040,000 persons. Especially, irregular workers have been getting more serious problems. Irregular women who receive less than the legal minimum wage totalled 750,000 persons, accounting for 23.5% out of the whole irregular women workers. In fact, shockingly, one irregular women worker out of 4 receive less than the minimum wage. Further, the number of low-income women irregular workers has been increasing. While male irregular workers shrank by 18,000 persons, female irregular workers increased by 85,000 persons last year. This shows the minimum wage issues are Korean female workers' issues.

 

In practice, workers received the minimum wage of 4,580 won per hour in 2012, which means they received just 950,000 won although they worked for 209 hours a month based on 8 hour work a day. This amount doesn't compete the average price (5,378 won) of a noodle in the 16 cities across the nation.

 

A minimum wage level demonstrates a perspective of a country on labor, especially women's work. Don't you, the Korean government know the minimum wage of 5,600 won is the minimum demands of women workers?

 

In relation to the ratio of women members, only 6 women members out of 27 are working in the Minimum Wage Committee, composed by 9 respectively from the Tripartite Commission. There are three women public committee, two from the workers' side and only one woman committee from the company side. We believe the number of women commissioner from the public and the company sides as well as that from the workers' side should rapidly increase. Further, a legal enforcement is needed: one gender should not excel 60% in the tripartite commission. What is the important is that the government should settle in the crippled operation of the Minimum Wage Committee, since both of the Korean umbrella trade unions don't join the committee as committee members, caused by the one-sided and deflective appointing of committee members.

 

In addition, according to Article 1 of the Minimum Wage Act, the minimum wage system aims for 'guaranteeing the minimum level of wage and stabilizing livelihood and improving the quality of labor for workers, which is designed to make contribution to the sound development of national economy.' However, the law excludes in-home workers from its coverage, which is seriously against the purpose of the legislation. We believe it should be reformed along with Article 11 of the Labor Standard Act (the scope of application), and so the minimum wage can be applied to all the care workers including care givers for the sick and specially employed workers.

 

We confirm the minimum wage is women workers' crucial issue. We proclaim we should take solidarity action for obtaining the minimum wage of 5,600 won for 2013.

 

 

Women’s Action for Decent Lives and Jobs
Dated on June 7, 2012

  Women’s Action for Decent Lives and Jobs (WADLJ) is a solidarity meeting of women workers' NGOs which aim to take action and find alternatives of women workers' issues and work hard to improve the Korean society for women to happily balance their jobs and family matters, consisting of Korean Womenlink, Korean Women’s Associations United, Korean Women Workers Association, Federation of Korean Trade Unions, Women Corea, Korean Women's Trade Union, Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, Woman Labor Law Support Center, Women's Committee of Lawyers for Democratic Society, and ALLTOGETHER.

Posted by KWWA
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