Minister Lee Jeong-sik "Considering Restricting Government Project Participation for Unions Committing Illegal Acts"

Labor Reform Promotion Review Meeting
Multiple Violations Confirmed Including Exceeding Working Hours Exemption Limits in Union Full-Time Staff Survey Results

Lee Jeong-sik, Minister of Employment and Labor, announced on the 28th, "We will strengthen disadvantages for labor and management that violate legal order and consider measures to restrict the participation qualifications of companies and organizations with a history of violating labor-related laws in various government projects."

On the same day, Minister Lee presided over the 'Labor Reform Promotion Inspection Meeting' held at the Seoul Employment and Labor Office, attended by heads of local offices nationwide and key department directors.

Minister Lee emphasized, "Establishing the rule of law in the field is difficult but a task that must be achieved. If the Ministry of Employment and Labor ignores illegal acts in the field despite knowing them, both employers and workers will continue to be exposed to illegal activities, and the outdated confrontational labor-management relations will not improve, causing harm to all citizens."

First, the Ministry of Employment and Labor decided to support improving awareness of labor-management legalism and reform systems to protect and remedy workers' rights. To improve awareness, joint campaigns for labor-management legalism will be conducted with labor and management organizations. Additionally, collaboration with industry-specific and regional labor-management-government councils will be promoted to ensure autonomous awareness improvement by labor and management.

System improvements to protect and remedy workers' rights will also be pursued simultaneously. The maternity protection system will be strengthened by expanding the age and period of children eligible for reduced working hours during childcare, increasing the number of times spousal paternity leave can be split from once to three times, and enhancing wage support for small and medium-sized enterprises.

A firm stance against labor and management that undermine labor-management legalism was also announced. Measures to restrict participation qualifications in various government projects will be considered for companies and organizations with a history of violating labor-related laws, including those under investigation or prosecution for labor law violations, those who have been criminally punished, and those who have received legal sanctions such as administrative fines or enforcement penalties.

To eradicate wage arrears, supervision will be strengthened. Minister Lee explained, "Wage arrears that threaten workers' livelihoods must be eradicated so that they cannot take root in the field. We will focus more on supervisory administration to ensure workers receive the rightful treatment prescribed by law."

Minister of Employment and Labor Lee Jeong-sik. (File photo)

The Ministry of Employment and Labor will thoroughly investigate the scale and circumstances of wage arrears at some affiliates of Daeyu Winia, where large-scale wage arrears occurred, and will closely cooperate with related agencies such as the prosecution to strictly deal with illegal acts. At the same time, planned supervision of wage arrears will be conducted for affiliates not under investigation, and prompt support such as advance payments and loans will be provided to affected workers to actively protect the rights of workers facing wage arrears.

Illegal union full-time officers and operational fund support will be identified, and supervision of unfair labor practices will be strengthened. This month, the Ministry conducted a full survey on 521 workplaces with unions regarding working hour exemptions and union operational fund support. The results confirmed cases such as unions receiving about 10 exclusive union vehicles and several hundred million won in cash from employers, unions paying salaries to union office staff, and workplaces with 315 working hour exemptions exceeding the limit by 283. The Ministry plans to complete and announce the analysis of the survey results on working hour exemptions and operational fund support soon and will correct illegal acts through supervision.

Minister Lee stated, "As a result of actively promoting policies to establish labor-management legalism, including strict responses to illegal strikes and unfair labor practices, enhancing union accounting transparency, preparing measures against wage arrears, and special supervision of workplace harassment, the number of lost workdays decreased from 1.05 million in 2017 under the Moon Jae-in administration to 260,000 last year. Going forward, we will continue to focus on eradicating illegal acts in the field and actively promote improvements in labor-management relations that do not meet public expectations, such as illegal full-time officer salary support, to firmly root labor-management legalism in the field."

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