National House Managers Cooperation and Korean Women Workers Association

 We have been struggling to stand against the gendered perception of domestic work, that the works is women's worker, and to locate the work in the right place. We debunked that it is against the social justice and discriminatory that the domestic work is not protected by the labor law and thus the law does not protect workers' human rights. Above all, we have been struggling to change the social perception of domestic workers by calling them 'house managers' instead of ' domestics' or 'helpers', in order to gain social recognition of the work. We contributed to the adoption of The Convention Concerning Decent Work for Domestic Workers in ILO in 201, playing a significant role in protecting domestic workers' human rights and labor rights.

 However, in reality, domestic service is provided without a proper contract. As a result, the industry is ruled by a grab-bag approach which often cause conflicts between the workers and clients. Domestic workers work 4 hours for a client, and the 4-hours work has no clear job description. This leads workers to work without a break or to work too much, causing chronic illness related to the work. On the other hand, clients experience difficulties in choosing services they need, as they have different preferences and expectations.

 To address this issue, the National House Managers' Cooperation,  Korean Women Workers Association, the workers , and researchers conducted a research project to develop a job manual for domestic work in 2014.  Based on the project, we developed; ▲ a job manual, which defines a boundary of domestic service and time that is need for the each services; ▲  rules that governs rights and obligations of both service providers and recipients; ▲ the Terms and Conditions for domestic service and the Standard Contract for Domestic Service. 

 As from today's press conference, we will carry on a public campaign to promote the wide usage of the contract, in order to protect the workers' human rights and rights of the clients. In addition, our workers will sign the contract with their actual clients. By writing the contract, we want;  ▲ to improve the social perception of domestic work; ▲to change the wildly used but denigrating terms referring domestic workers to house manager;▲ to re-evaluate the value of domestic work, which has long been devalued; ▲to recover self esteem of domestic workers by declaring them as workers; ▲to guarantee the rights and the obligations of workers and clients; ▲to re-locate domestic work in this society. 

 Wishing that domestic work is respected as an important job, we request the government to play more active role in settling down the practice of writing the contract. 

July 2nd, 2015 

National House Managers Cooperation, Korean Women Workers Association.

'The wind of minimum wage raise, blow!'

- Decide the minimum wage that contribute to the solving the issues of social bi-polarization and wage gap between women and men!

June 25th, 2015

 Since the deputy finance minister's remarks that we need to raise the minimum wage to boost the domestic economy, debate around the minimum wage was heated as a social issue. However, the debate did not last long, apparently due to the opposition from the businesses, and the minimum wage meeting has started in the silence to decide the minimum wage for next year. In the sixth meeting of the committee meeting in June 23rd, the employers proposed to freeze of the minimum wage again, and even worse, they made insulting comments on the workers. The committee meeting is ongoing under the inappropriate atmosphere, far from its importance in deciding a national minimum wage.

 People who experience a direct impact from the minimum wage are low-income workers who earn the minimum wage and those who earn the less than the legal minimum wage. Today 2,270,000 of people are earning less than the minimum wage. Among them, women account for 1,480,000, irregular women workers account for1,400,000, and 62% of those who earn less than the minimum wage are irregular women workers. On top of that, more than two-millions of workers under indirect employment and part-time workers are affected from the minimum wage.

 Today, eight-millions of women workers exist in Korea. 56,11% of them, which correspond to 4,500,000 of women workers, are irregular workers and 61% of these irregular women workers belong to low-income group. Still, the country tops the wage gap between men and women among OECD countries. Abolishing discrimination in the labor market is a way to solving to problem of social bi-polarization. Are not we ready to give up the top spot in the OECD gender wage gap ranking ?

 The key to abolish the wage discrimination against women is to raise the minimum wage. Under the current minimum wage, the hourly wage is 5,580 won, and the monthly wage is 1,160,000 won. Aren’t we supposed to be able to make living when we work hard for a month? 2,090,000 won per month and 10,000won per hour are right and just pay for those who work hard.

 In today's harsh economy climate, the majority of people in our society are struggling to manage their lives. It is especially true for working women. The problem of social bi-polarization, which is the biggest issue of our society today, results in the issue of discrimination. It is especially necessary to prioritize this issue when times are rough. It is difficult times, but we need to develop alternatives and change the reality step by step. To the committee that will make a decision this month, we ask for the right decision on the minimum wage for next year, which will be the starting point of new era with 10,000 won minimum wage.

June 25th, 2015

Women workers who demand the raise of the minimum wage to 10,000 won.

- We demand for regularization of workers from large corporations with financial base and public sector!

Today, we remember women workers in the U.S. who marched demanding for the suffrage and bread 107 years ago. To celebrate the international women's day, which inherits the spirit of these women workers' struggles and pledges for political freedom and equality for women, today in 2015 we declare women workers' requests.

 Today, 56.11% of 8 millions of women workers in Korea, which are about four-million-and fifty-hundreds of thousands of women workers, are irregular workers. The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women advised South Korea to reduce the number of women irregular workers as it is excessively large now. Also, South Korea, among OECD countries, has topped with its biggest wage gap between men and women. Therefore, today's statement to remember and to inherit the struggle for freedom and equality for women is all about irregular women workers. Because, the very key in resolving the issue of discrimination against women workers is to address the issue of discrimination against irregular workers . Hence, discussion on irregular workers must be based on irregular workers' and women workers' perspectives.

 Yet when you look at the government's Comprehensive Alternatives for Irregular Work, you can hardly find any alternatives to address the issues of irregular workers, but you will find that it is all about making lay-off more flexible and restructuring regular workers' wages. How could it be alternatives, if it lacks discussions on women and irregular workers?

 This is not so different in the Flextime Employment policy, which is promoted by the government. This policy does not create more jobs, yet it converts 8-hours regular jobs into part-time jobs, degrading the working conditions, as well as the wages. This Flextime policy targets women, operating as a mechanism that lowers the quality of women workers' working conditions. In the public sector, the 8-hours work of in-home nurses was converted into part-time jobs. Cleaning workers in the Songdo residence of Yeonsei University were forced to choose either being fired or changing their employment into part-time, so they are still struggling. Looking at the statistics, 10.8% of total workers in Korea are part-time workers, and women account for 71.1% of the. When we say the hourly wage of regular workers is 100, irregular workers' wage is only 48; only 19.5% of irregular workers are covered by the employment insurance, and 13.1% of them receive retirement pay.

 Public sector, which is supposed to be a good model, is not so different. There are 470,000 of irregular workers in the public sector; 130,000 of them are receiving less than the minimum wages. They are supposed to be converted into regular workers after two years of employment as irregular workers in the public sector, 185,878 irregular workers, which correspond to 73.8% of the eligible irregular workers, were not converted in 2013.

 In addition, people think that small and medium size corporations hire irregular workers due to their weak financial base, yet the 10 largest corporations in the country hire 440,000 of irregular workers, which accounts for 36.3% of total irregular workers in the country. Is not the social responsibility of big corporations with strong financial base that they show good examples of addressing issues in irregular work ?

 It is estimated that more than two millions of workers are under indirect employment now. The only legal protection for these workers for now, however, is the dispatched work act. Recently we see more conflicts around the indirect employment. Without any legal alternatives, these workers are being forced to accept lay-off or degrading working conditions.

 Today, the majority of people in our society are struggling to manage their lives. It is especially true for working women. Solving the problem of social bi-polarization, which is the biggest issue of our society today, is especially necessary when times are rough. In this difficult times, we need to develop alternatives and change the reality step by step.

 Today, celebrating the international women's day, we want to emphasize  in this statement that  we contribute to solving the problem of the social bi-polarization by improving the quality of lives of women workers. Wishing that the government , politicians, and everyone can think about the lives of 8 millions of women workers in March, we declare women workers' 7 requests. 

7 request from women workers in 2015.

○ Develop a comprehensive solutions to improve the quality of employment of 4500,000 irregular women workers!

○ Second, convert all irregular workers in public sectors into regular workers and employ those indirectly-employed workers directly!

○ Third, the biggest 10 corporations should develop a good model of the labor market that addresses the issue of 440,000 irregular workers they are hiring!

○ Fourth, abolish the Flextime employment policy, which focuses on the quantity of the jobs only, and establish new policies for quality jobs for women!

○ Fifth, raise the minimum wage substantially to guarantee the security of lives of working poor women!

○ Sixth, legislate the law that clarifies legal responsibility for indirectly employed workers!

○ Seventh, legislate the law for workers under special employment that obliges to join the occupational health and safety insurance and employment insurance!

March 6th, 2015.

Korean Women's Trade UnionㆍKorean Women Workers AssociationㆍActivists in the 70s (Kwon Soon-Gab, Kim Ji-Sun, Maria Lee, Lee Chong-Gak, Jung Sun-Soon, Cho Ok-Hwa, Choi Soon-Young)