[Editorial] Labor reform talks

It is welcome that the tripartite committee has resumed its negotiations for labor market reform, which had been in hiatus since April. The Federation of Korean Trade Union’s decision to return to the table paved the way for the resumption of the talks.

Heads of the three parties — Labor Minister Lee Ki-won, FKTU leader Kim Dong-man and Bahk Byong-won, president of the Korea Employers Federation — met with the head of the tripartite panel, Kim Dae-hwan, Thursday. On the surface, the meeting seemed a good starting point. 

The umbrella union’s comeback, however, does not guarantee the success of the negotiations. To be fair, it even did not brighten the prospects for the talks that much.

The FKTU walked out of the tripartite panel in April, when the negotiation that had started in September 2014 was deadlocked over two key issues.

One issue was the proposal to make layoffs easier for underperformers, while the other was the plan to allow employers to revise some of the employment rules in each individual company without consent from workers.

Currently, the law obliges employers to gain consent from workers when changes in the employment rules could be unfavorable to employees. The government wants the proposal mainly to introduce the peak wage system.

These two issues were the thorn in the side of the negotiations and they blocked the tripartite panel from striking a package deal, although it had agreed on most of the total of 65 reform agendas.

So these are definitely the make-or-break issues of the negotiation, and thus all the parties should be willing to discuss them in a faithful manner and make some concessions. In this regard, the FKTU’s announcement that it will not accept the two proposals under any circumstances makes one suspect its true intention to come back to the negotiating table.  

It is a little understandable that the union cannot accept the proposals easily, but it is self-contradictory that it is coming back to the table without any change in their position on the issues for which they had broken off the discussion.

There is speculation that the FKTU returned to the talks to protect its vested interest and, in a worse case, thwart — or delay — the reform. This is why the government should set a deadline — Labor Minister Lee proposed Sept. 10 — and try to abide by it even if that means a failure to pull off a compromise.

Without such strong determination and commitment, the nation would not be able to achieve the reform, which is required to, among other things, narrow the gap between workers in large and small companies and between regular workers and irregular workers and alleviate the youth unemployment problem.