Yoon Hee-sook: "Full Application of 52-Hour Workweek to SMEs Should Be Postponed Until After Overcoming COVID-19"

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Ji-eun] Yoon Hee-sook, a member of the People Power Party, raised her voice saying, "Postponing the full application of the 52-hour workweek for small and medium-sized enterprises until after overcoming COVID-19 truly carries on the spirit of Jeon Tae-il."

On the 13th, Yoon said on Facebook, "Small and medium-sized enterprises, already struggling to survive the COVID-19 pandemic, are despairing because the '52-hour workweek' is just 50 days away."

Commemorating the 50th anniversary of Jeon Tae-il, she said, "As a good and upright young man, Jeon Tae-il must have found it frustrating that despite the Labor Standards Act existing, there were miserable working conditions where the law was not followed," adding, "I believe the responsibility for his death lies with those who made the laws and implemented policies at that time."

Yoon emphasized, "Of course, in a poor developing country, even intellectuals would have found it difficult to realistically design laws and policies balancing theory and reality," and added, "Therefore, rather than blaming those individuals for not overcoming the limitations of their era, it is much more important to vow not to repeat such ignorance from the current standpoint."

She pointed out, "Many have criticized the uniformity and rigidity of the 52-hour workweek regulation, yet the government's position is to apply the 52-hour rule without further delay," and criticized, "The government, which has indiscriminately and sometimes selectively distributed up to 20 trillion won in COVID-19 disaster relief funds, is pushing small and medium-sized enterprises that are barely surviving to die faster, which is hard to understand."

Yoon said, "The lesson learned over the past 50 years since Jeon Tae-il, especially from the Moon Jae-in administration that raised the minimum wage sharply in the name of helping the vulnerable but ended up taking away many vulnerable people's jobs, is that merely transplanting advanced country systems is not truly for the weak," and emphasized, "To prevent actively eliminating the few existing jobs and pushing workers into ruin, the expansion schedule of the 52-hour workweek should be postponed until after overcoming COVID-19."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.