Human Rights Commission "Recommendation to Recognize Work Experience Before Employment... Gwangsan-gu Facilities Corporation Rejects"

National Human Rights Commission of Korea building. Photo by National Human Rights Commission

[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Cho] The National Human Rights Commission announced on the 29th that Gwangsan-gu Facilities Management Corporation in Gwangju Metropolitan City did not accept the recommendation to recognize an employee's pre-employment work experience as seniority.

On the same day, the Human Rights Commission stated, "Gwangsan-gu Facilities Management Corporation needs to make more active efforts to eliminate employment discrimination based on social status, such as not recognizing non-regular work experience," and disclosed the corporation's response in accordance with the Human Rights Commission Act. Previously, in November last year, the Commission recommended Gwangsan-gu Facilities Management Corporation to recognize the work experience of environmental staff member A, who worked five times as a temporary laborer, as seniority.

The corporation responded to this recommendation by stating, "The work experience of Mr. A as a temporary laborer consisted of labor contracts each shorter than six months, which is too brief to be considered valuable enough to recognize as seniority." They cited reasons that temporary laborers and regular employees differ in salary, welfare systems, and various complex personnel management characteristics, making it difficult to recognize temporary labor as seniority. However, the Human Rights Commission's Discrimination Correction Committee judged, "Mr. A's temporary labor work experience involved full-time 8-hour work similar to regular workers, and the nature, intensity, and responsibility of the tasks were no different from those of regular employees. Therefore, not recognizing it as seniority solely because of a different employment route is unreasonable."

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