Korea Employers Federation: "Labor-Management Relations Should Be a Growth Engine, Not a Corporate Risk"

The 35th Korea Labor-Management Cooperation Awards Ceremony Held

The Korea Employers Federation held the 35th Korea Labor-Management Cooperation Awards ceremony at the Korea Press Center on the 18th. The ceremony was attended by Son Kyung-sik, Chairman of the Korea Employers Federation, Lee Jeong-sik, Minister of Employment and Labor, Kim Dong-myeong, Chairman of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, and Kim Moon-soo, Chairman of the Economic, Social and Labor Council.

The Korea Employers Federation established the Korea Labor-Management Cooperation Awards in 1989 to annually select, award, and encourage companies that have overcome management difficulties and achieved growth and development through labor-management cooperation.

Kwon Kyung-sik, Chairman of the Korea Employers Federation, is delivering a greeting at the 2023 Labor-Management-Government New Year's Meeting held on the 6th at Post Tower in Jung-gu, Seoul. Photo by Kim Hyun-min kimhyun81@

This year, the grand prize in the large enterprise category was awarded to HD Hyundai Infracore and Lotte Shopping’s Lotte Mart division, while the excellence award in the large enterprise category went to Korea Environment Corporation, and the grand prize in the mid-sized and small enterprise category was awarded to Komico.

HD Hyundai Infracore has maintained 12 years of no labor disputes despite having four labor unions, thanks to active communication through various councils. In 2020, when COVID-19 broke out, the labor union proposed freezing basic wages, and labor and management overcame the crisis together. Lotte Mart’s labor and management have maintained no labor disputes since 2004. Similarly, despite the management crisis caused by COVID-19, they overcame it through shared sacrifices such as agreeing to freeze wages.

Korea Environment Corporation experienced labor-labor and labor-management conflicts due to wage and rank gaps between institutions after the 2010 institutional integration but launched a unified labor union in January last year. Komico has continued to grow in the semiconductor parts cleaning and coating market based on cooperative labor-management relations and was recognized as an ‘Excellent Institution for Human Resource Development’ by the Ministry of Employment and Labor and others in 2021 for its achievements in human resource development.

Son Kyung-sik, Chairman of the Korea Employers Federation, emphasized the importance of cooperative labor-management relations, stating, “Labor-management relations can be a driving force for corporate growth and at the same time a weakness for companies.” He added, “For companies to overcome crises and strengthen competitiveness, cooperation between labor and management is more important than anything else,” and encouraged, “The award-winning companies today have laid the foundation for growth based on dialogue, communication, and trust between labor and management, and wisely overcame management difficulties through shared sacrifices.”

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