Speeding Up Union Accounting Transparency... Government Begins Revising the Labor Union Act

Minister of Employment and Labor Lee Jeong-sik is speaking at the "Press Briefing on Directions for Improving Unreasonable Labor Practices Legislation and Systems" held on the 2nd at the Seoul Employment and Labor Office in Jung-gu, Seoul. (Photo by Ministry of Employment and Labor)

The government is initiating amendments to the Labor Union Act to enhance the transparency of labor union accounting. To this end, the ruling party, the People Power Party, and the government plan to hold a party-government consultation in mid-month. Additionally, prior to the legal amendment, the government intends to revise subordinate statutes to specify the qualifications for union auditors as certified public accountants, accounting firms, or individuals with experience in finance and accounting-related work, and to clarify the timing and methods for announcing settlement results and operational status.

On the 2nd, the Ministry of Employment and Labor announced that based on proposals from the "Expert Advisory Meeting on Improving Unreasonable Labor Practices" (hereinafter referred to as the Advisory Meeting), it plans to promptly push forward amendments to the Labor Union Act through party-government consultations this month. The amendment bill will be based on the discussions from the Advisory Meeting. During the meeting held that day, proposals were made to activate union accounting disclosure, secure the professionalism and independence of auditors, and strengthen union members' rights to request information.

The Advisory Meeting proposed promoting the activation of union accounting disclosure to effectively guarantee the rights of non-member workers to choose and associate with unions. Since the government aims to establish a disclosure system in the third quarter, it suggested the need to activate disclosure even before the legal amendment by preparing union accounting guidelines and providing incentives to unions that comply with disclosure, supporting voluntary disclosure.

Furthermore, since the current Labor Union Act does not specifically define the qualifications and election methods for auditors, limiting reliability, it was explained that considering overseas legislative examples such as the UK and Japan, it is desirable to restrict auditor qualifications to those professionally related to accounting and to require unions above a certain size to establish democratic internal control measures. There was also an opinion that to secure the independence of auditors, union members should directly elect them at general meetings, and holding concurrent union executive positions should be prohibited.

Moreover, the current Labor Union Act only stipulates that accounting audits must be conducted and disclosed at least once every six months, it was stated that to strengthen union members' control over union financial operations, it is necessary to consider measures to conduct accounting audits upon request by at least one-third of the union members and to disclose the results to all members or through general meetings.

Experts explained that not only violations of labor rights by employers but also violations by unions should be regarded as unfair labor practices. They emphasized the need to regulate acts that obstruct union membership or withdrawal through personnel disadvantages, assault, or threats; acts that interfere with other workers' legitimate union activities and work performance; acts that force the conclusion of illegal collective agreements; and acts that unjustly demand money or refuse to provide work.

Lee Jeong-sik, Minister of Employment and Labor, said, "Establishing the rule of law in labor relations is a task based on the common sense that 'the law is the minimum agreement everyone must comply with,'" adding, "We will promote improvements in laws and systems to eradicate workplace corruption and establish the rule of law in labor relations at workplaces." Kim Kyung-yul, a certified public accountant who chaired the advisory group, said, "Since unions are autonomous organizations, we agreed on the need to strengthen accounting transparency centered on financial operation control by union members."

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