Workers should not pay price for shortened hours, says global union leader
Philip Jennings |
Philip Jennings, left, general secretary of UNI Global Union, joins a protest in Yeouido, Seoul, April 10, against the privatization of medical services. He delivered a speech at the rally with hundreds of members of the Korea Health & Medical Workers' Union. / Courtesy of UNI Global Union
By Kim Da-ye
Nearly half of Korean employees regularly work overtime although the nation has adopted the legally-binding 40-hour week system.
legally-binding 40-hour week system.
Some 620,000 employees
labored more than 12 overtime hours during the week plus extra work on weekends
in 2012, according to government statistics.
Long working
hours and low productivity have been considered chronic problems in Korea Inc.,
and the government has proposed cutting the maximum work hours from 68 to 52 per
week in two years' time.
Achieving this goal of reduction in
working hours will certainly be a tough fight.
Businesses
are being encouraged by the government to hire more people so that each employee
will work fewer hours with a corresponding decrease in
earnings.
Workers, however, do not want their incomes to
decrease. Companies insist that hiring more employees without cutting wages will
be unsustainable for them financially.
Philip Jennings,
general secretary of UNI Global Union, said in an interview with The Korea Times
that working hours should be shortened, but individual workers shouldn't "pay
the bill."
The Nyon, Switzerland-based UNI Global Union
represents more than 20 million workers from more than 900 trade unions in some
150 countries. Major Korean labor unions including the Federation of Korean
Trade Unions are members of UNI.
"You need to make a new
social contract to reduce working hours. But I don't think individuals have to
pay the bill," Jennings said.
"In Germany, when we had the
global crisis, workers made a decision, ‘We will work fewer hours and see less
pay.' But that was a problem of economic cycle. Here, you have systematic
problem of working too long. It is not good for competitiveness. A tired worker
is not a productive worker."
Growing
inequality
The union leader linked the need to
maintain current wage levels to the bigger issue of growing inequality in
Korea.
"When I first came to Korea, roaring Asian Tigers
took the cubs, the people, with them. They were growing together. The Tiger is
roaring still, but not taking people with them. The economy is growing, but I am
not feeling, not seeing this. It's harder to make a living," Jennings
said.
"I see the new Seoul, the new Korea. But there are
people who feel lonely, abandoned and cannot feed themselves. Korean society
should wake up to this reality."
Jennings also discussed
seniority-based wages, which are commonly practiced in Korea. The government
recently published a guideline which recommends that companies should revise
their seniority-based wage structure by adopting performance-based payments or
decide wages based on an employee's job and position.
While
Jennings found such widespread practice of seniority-based pay in Korea unique,
he said the principle of wage systems should be "certainty of what an employee
is going to earn."
"If I make decision on what I buy and
where I live, I need to know the level of income. Therefore I think this kind of
certainty is very important," he said.
"My message to the
government will be ‘Be careful on purchasing power on citizens.' An economy is
built on consumption, on working people's ability to buy goods and services ...
Be very careful with squeezing a dry towel."
Labor unions in
Korea have recently been portrayed in a negative light by some politicians and
the media as a selfish cohort clinging to their accumulated "privileges,"
preventing increases in hiring.
Jennings admitted that
"labor movements in Asia should do more for irregular workers and women." But he
said that accusations against labor unions for being responsible for the stalled
job growth are wrong.
"It is all part of the game to weaken
labor law and turn it into a jungle where they can do what they want to do,"
Jennings said.
"Who built pressure cookers on the economy
and exploded the pressure cookers? It wasn't the banking unions. It was the
philosophy and value of banking managers. CEOs earn over 300 times more than
average workers ... The share of wages in the wealth produced in G20 countries
is lower now than it has been for the 30 years. Money is going up
there."
‘Invite unions to Blue
House'
This year, Korea faces various labor issues
to tackle. They include dealing with potential privatization of state-run
companies; simplifying the wage structure by integrating regularly paid bonuses
and allowances into "normal wages," and cutting work
hours.
At stake is also how to boost the percentage of
working people against the entire population to over 70 percent; how to have
more women participate in the labor market; and how to improve working
conditions for non-regular or contract workers.
Besides, the
country has to extend the retirement age, deal with labor unions of teachers and
civil servants, and solve the high rate of youth
unemployment.
When asked to name an issue that caught his
attention and suggest a solution, he didn't single out one but urged the
government and labor unions to have a dialog.
"We know this
is a market economy. We know about productivity. We know about training and
skills. But have any unions been invited to the Blue House for round table
discussions? Please negotiate with labor unions. We make a new social contract.
Invite them to the Blue House," the general secretary
said.
Jennings visited Seoul to express his concern at
deteriorating labor rights since the election of President Park Geun-hye. The
last time he visited the country was in 2010.
"Developments
since the election of President Park alarmed UNI and the global labor movement,"
he said.
"The arrest of union leaders. The raid into Korean
Confederation of Trade Unions. It's not acceptable that unionists are put into
prison for doing their union work."
The general secretary
also criticized police presence at the recent protest by medical professionals
against a potential privatization of medical
services.
"There were nurses. They are taking care of
mothers, fathers and families of policemen, yet they stood there. What message
do I take to the world when I am back?"
http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2014/04/113_156287.html