Union Full-Time Officials Receiving Salary Confirmed 13% Violation of 'Working Hours Exemption Limit'

A case of violating the labor hour exemption (time-off) limit, which is the standard for how many paid full-time union officials a labor union can have receiving salaries from the company, has been detected.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

The Ministry of Employment and Labor announced on the 3rd that, after investigating and analyzing the operation status of the labor hour exemption system at 480 workplaces with labor unions among workplaces with more than 1,000 employees over three months starting May 31, 13.1% (63 places) of illegal and unfair cases were confirmed.

According to the Ministry of Employment and Labor's survey results, the total number of labor hour exempted workers at the 480 workplaces was 3,834, averaging 8 per workplace, and the total annual exempted hours were about 4.5 million hours, averaging 9,387 hours per workplace. The total monthly salary of full-time exempted workers was about 11.2 billion KRW, with an average of 6,376,000 KRW per person.

63 workplaces exceeded the limits. Specifically, 38 workplaces exceeded the number of personnel, and 43 workplaces exceeded the hours. 18 workplaces exceeded both the personnel and time limits. There was even a workplace that operated about 2.9 times the legally allowed exemption hours (22,000 hours corresponding to 11 persons), with 63,948 hours.

Based on this investigation result, the Ministry of Employment and Labor plans to conduct planned labor inspections targeting about 200 workplaces suspected of legal violations, including the public sector. Afterwards, the ministry intends to expand labor inspections to establish a system for regular monitoring and supervision.

Minister of Employment and Labor Lee Jeong-sik said, “Acts such as employers recognizing the labor hour exemption system beyond the legal limits or providing excessive operating expenses to labor unions infringe on the independence and autonomy of the unions and damage the soundness of labor-management relations, which are abnormal practices.”

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