Korea Employers Federation: "'Labor Director System Report Fabrication' Coverage Is Not True"

Issued a rebuttal statement regarding related reports

[Asia Economy Reporter Kiho Sung] The Korea Employers Federation (KEF) rebutted on the 10th a report by a senior reporter from the Hankyoreh Economic and Social Research Institute aired on MBC Radio’s ‘Kim Jong-bae’s Focus,’ which claimed that KEF’s report on the ‘Labor Director System’ was filled with factual distortions and false fabrications.

KEF stated, "The criticism selectively extracted certain phrases from the overall content of the KEF report and maliciously distorted and condemned it."

They added, "The OECD data cited multiple times was not limited to Europe but surveyed 49 countries including Europe, the Americas, and China. Excluding China, 13 European countries have introduced the Labor Director System, so it is true that only ‘some European countries’ among the OECD survey targets have adopted the system. The report did not mention the situations of various European countries that have adopted stakeholder capitalism, unlike South Korea, and only expressed that the number of implementing countries in Europe is 1.6 times that of non-implementing countries. This disregards the overall context of the KEF report and selectively criticizes only part of its content with intent," they pointed out.

They continued, "Even within Germany, which first introduced and operates the Labor Director System, there are considerable voices pointing out problems with the system. In particular, KEF conveyed the rebuttal to the Labor Director System by directly requesting the German Employers’ Association (BDA) and relaying their response (dated January 15 of this year). Despite directly inquiring with Germany and reporting that there are significant rebuttals to the Labor Director System within Germany, it is unreasonable to criticize KEF for spreading falsehoods while remaining silent about the fact of the inquiry," they emphasized.

KEF stated, "It is true that major countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan, which have adopted a unitary board structure under a shareholder capitalism system like South Korea, have not adopted the Labor Director System. Our association’s report mentioned the dual board structure characteristics in explaining Germany’s Labor Director System, and introduced cases where labor directors have been introduced in management and supervisory boards in various countries. Therefore, it is not true that KEF concealed or distorted this information," they concluded.

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