The reality of women workers living in Korea is as follows.

 About 8.5 million female workers, about 4.7 million, taking up 55.4% of the total, are irregular workers. Once the United Nations Commission on Women advised the Korean government to reduce the number of women irregular workers. The wage gap between men and women is the highest in the OECD countries, and the wage of women irregular workers is only 36.3% of the one of men.

 Under such circumstances, the government is pursuing labor reform that enables employers to dismiss workers by the effectiveness of performance. With practices and cultures of current labor market, women workers are likely to be the first to be considered as low performers. Also only 1% of female irregular workers are organized for collective actions. Therefore, non-regular female workers who do not have collective agreements are subject to the rules of employment. We remember the fact that women workers were the first to be laid off during the last IMF financial crisis.

 The problems of female workers whose career is interrupted because of the difficulty of balancing work and family life. Still in these days, female workers are being laid off for pregnancy, childbirth and childcare, and discriminatory culture and practices continues in terms of sexual harassment as well as employment and wages.

 The minimum wage is 6,030 won per hour in 2016, and the monthly salary is 1,260,000 won per month. The minimum wage is the actual wage for the majority of 4.7 million non-regular women workers. The number of indirectly employed workers, such as in cleaning services, where many middle-aged female workers are working, is increasing amounting to be more than 2 million.

 The realities of the public sector, which is supposed to have a modeling role, are not different. There are 470,000 irregular workers in the public sector, and 130,000 underemployed workers are paid less than the minimum wage. Among them, 370,000 irregular workers work in schools. Excluding irregular teachers, dispatched workers, and fixed-term teachers, about 150,000 are left and 93.4% of them are women. The union members in schools, who make up the majority of women's labor unions in the nation, plan to continue efforts to resolve discrimination by improving wages and collective agreements starting with the general strike of Jeonbuk branch on the 8th of April.

 Women’s child care and care work for the elderly are considered unpaid care work or regarded insignificant. Home care workers, estimated to be 300,000, are not even recognized as workers, and are working in harsh working conditions, being exposed to job insecurity, wage depreciation, unfair treatment, long or too short work hours.

 In short, the problem is that no environment is secured where women workers can work safely and comfortably. The demands and wishes of our women workers can be put into a sentence; “Ensure the right of women workers to work safely!”

 On April 13, we will vote to elect lawmakers. We will carefully select candidates who want to improve the reality of women workers by thoroughly examining whether they have wills and alternatives to solve the problems of women workers, and whether there are commitments and policies for the problems of irregular workers. We will also continue to monitor.

 The National Women’s Labor Union and the Korean Women Workers Association will carry out the campaign ‘The Right of Women Workers to Work Safely’ throughout the whole country in order to change this reality little by little.

 From today, women workers in the nation are united to demand the followings for the year 2016.

 Six Wishes of Female Workers in 2016

 First, immediately stop labor reform that will further fuel the job insecurity of 8 million women!

 First, strengthen the system for pregnancy, childbirth and childcare to harmonize work and family life, and take aggressive measures to eliminate the culture and practices of sexual discrimination at work including sexual harassment!

 First, female workers are poor even though they work hard! Raise the minimum wage to 10,000 won to ensure a basic living!

 First, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Education must take the lead in resolving the discrimination against women and irregular workers by actively addressing the demands of the irregular workers in the schools, 93.4% of which are female workers.

 First, recognize domestic workers as legal workers! Establish special laws and create more jobs for protection of female workers!

 First, protect care services for public interests and improve labor rights and treatment of care workers!

March 14, 2016

National Women's Labor Union, Korean Women Workers Association

Retreating policies on gender equality: focusing on policies from the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family

 According to the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Report, South Korea ranked 116th in wage gap between women and men. Korea ranked behind Nepal and Cambodia. Economic growth that the country achieved was glossy, yet it was a result of exploitation of women workers, and discrimination against women still exists. A few days ago, my author, who is in a university now, said this to me. " It is more difficult for a woman to get a job, even if we study hard as men do. Gender equality..? What the crap."

 We all know that it is unlikely that male bread winners can support the family as it they did in the 70s and the 80s. Future is so uncertain and unstable in this ear that everyone, men and women, are all irregular workers. The instability in our lives is a result of wrong policies that Park Geun-hye administration is promoting, policies that expand inequality, instead of reducing it. The retrogressive reform of the labor market is a good example. If the labor market is reformed as the government intends, people will be working as irregular workers in their entire lives like salves; they will work as irregular workers in their 20s, part-time workers in their 30s, and dispatched workers in their 50s.

 If you look at the counseling cases in our Call for Equality, the only available job for a woman who went to graduate school but discontinued her career is a job with the minimum wage, which pays her 1,200,000 won a month. The government said that they will create decent part-time jobs, yet they are converting regular jobs into part-time jobs with poor working conditions. It is uncommon to see the cases that the employer sign the contract for only 11 months in order to avoid the retirement pay. The government promised solutions for the women's career discontinuity, yet in the past five years, we have 26,000 women who were fired because they could not get the maternal leave. Moreover, sexual harassment, insulting individual's character, and human right violence are going worse and worse! What are the government, who is supposed to protect the people and enforce the law, and especially the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, who is supposed to protect women's human rights, doing now?

 It is the government and the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family that who must be fired because of their unsatisfactory performance in fulfilling their constitutional duties to protect the rights of the people. We, women, will not hesitate in demanding our rights but we will stand up for our constitutional rights. The more they try to oppress us, the more persistently we will arise. We urge the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family to respect and obey the constitutional law.

November 25th, 2015

Three non-profit organizations for domestic workers press conference,

Stop lying about the legislation for domestic work! Stop now!

We condemn the Ministry of Employment and Labor for its idleness!

 On Friday November 6th, the National House Managers’ Cooperation, YWCA Korea, and the National Domestic Workers Association hosted a press conference at the main gate of the National Assembly.

 In February, the Ministry of Employment and Labor announced that they will legislate a law ‘act on usage of domestic service and employment of in-home workers’ in March. It is almost at the end of the year, yet the promise from the ministry is missing. Now, the three organizations hosted the press conference to condemn the ministry for its idleness.

 In the conference Yoon Hyeon-Mi, a president of the National House Managers’ Cooperation, argued that domestic workers should stop just waiting the legislation but the workers voice their requests so that we can achieve the new law that protects domestic workers’ human rights and labor rights.

 Kim Jae-Soon, who also gave a speech at the conference, spoke up about the reality of domestic workers that the workers lack break , vacation, any protection from the injury at work. She also condemned that the work is unstable as workers are often fired without any notice and they have nowhere even when their clients treated them as a thief or offend their feeling with verbal abuse.

 Reading a joint statement for the press conference, the representatives of the three organization requested that; ▲ the article 11 clause 1 in the Labor Standard Act, which excludes domestic workers from the scope of application of the law, must be deleted; ▲ the law protecting domestic workers must be legislated promptly; ▲ stable work environment where domestic workers can work safely must be created; ▲ public assistance for single-parent, low-income families must be expanded;▲ the government must establish policies that cultivate non-profit domestic service provider organizations. The three organizations conduct a performance condemning the empty word of ministry by breaking rice chips which is empty inside.

【Joint statement】

 A missing legislation: we strongly condemning the empty word of the government that ignores people

 It has been five years since the alliance of domestic workers’ organizations and civic groups in the labor movement has proposed amendment of the Labor Standard Act and legislation of a law protecting domestic workers in 2010. Meanwhile, outside the country the ILO convention concerning domestic workers in 2011;inside the country, national assembly of Korea urged the ratification of the convention in 2011, the Korea Tripartite Commission made its official request for protection for domestic workers in 2012.

 After all these long discussions, the Ministry of Employment and Labor announced that they will promote ‘formalization of informal labor market’ as a means of ‘improving labor market structure in order to create more jobs’ in January 13, 2015. In February 24th, the ministry also made an announced that they will legislate a law to formalize domestic workers in the informal labor market and enforce it next year.

 It seemed that the legal protection of domestic workers are on the progress; indeed, domestic workers and citizens who heard the news about the legislation paid attention to the issue, expecting that the government pays attention to the reality of people and brings a real change that people actually can see. So did we domestic workers organizations. Although the result of our continuous request for amendment of the Labor Standard Act, which can bring a profound change, is not our satisfactory, we agreed that the announcement from the ministry about the legislation would be a big step towards the stability in employment of domestic workers. So we hosted forums and educated people in order to gather voice from the workers and to reach out people.

 However, at the almost end of year, in October, we do not see the promise, which is supposed to be fulfilled as one of the major tasks of the government. There is long way to go to legislate, such as, hosting public hearing, making a legislation notice, and searching funding for the legislation, yet the government keeps silence on this matter. Where did the promise with the people go? Was the promise that gave hope to domestic workers and the people about the change just a empty word? Did they just threw it out there? The Ministry of Employment and Labor, as a ministry in charge, must show us a road map for the legislation; when and with what contents will they propose the legislation? When will the law will be enforced? How will they find the financial source for the enactment of the law?

 All these questions must be answered specifically and clearly. We also request an official meeting with the minister of the Ministry of Employment and Labor. The minister avoided answering the national assembly members' questions, showing very irresponsible attitude in the parliamentary inspection of the administration. As a chair of the ministry that governs administrations on employment and labor, he must express a formal position of the government in the meeting with us. On behalf of 300,000 domestic workers, we request to the government as follow.

 First, the article 11 clause 1 in the Labor Standard Act, which excludes domestic workers from the scope of application of the law, must be deleted!

 Second, the law protecting domestic workers must be legislated immediately!

 Third, stable work environment where domestic workers can work safely must be created!

 Fourth, public assistance for single-parent, dual-earner, and low-income families must be expanded!

 Fifth, the government must establish policies that cultivate non-profit domestic service provider organizations!

November 6th, 2015

Members of the National House Managers’ Cooperation, YWCA Korea, and the National Domestic Workers Association