[Editorial] Strike season

Concerns are mounting as workers in the financial industry are poised to stage an all-out protest. Employees from some other public sectors including railways, subway lines and hospitals will follow suit in the form of a general strike against the government’s scheduled introduction of performance-based pay scheme.

The Korea Financial Industry Union has already publicized its strike plan in which a dominant portion of its unionized workers will participate in the walkout this Friday.

As about 100,000 employees are projected to partake in the strikes, there is a high possibility that many customers of the first-tier banks will experience inconveniences. Aside from individual customers, some small and medium-sized corporate customers might suffer from problems like a failure in receiving emergency loans or transferring funds to overseas operations.

For the stock brokerage sector, some financial consumers might have difficulty in trading shares at offline branches of securities firms nationwide. There are similar concerns among users of credit cards and policyholders of insurance, including drivers.

Bank and securities regulators, most of all, should thoroughly map out countermeasures against potential problems such as paralysis or glitches in internet banking, automated teller machines, and the home-trading system for equities.

The Financial Supervisory Service needs to dispatch a group of substitute workers such as bank tellers to financial firms, while carrying out close cybersecurity monitoring of consumers’ internet-based transactions.

The heavy shortage of workforce caused by the sit-in protests could open the way for critical financial accidents or crimes. So the FSS’ close coordination with law enforcement agencies is also required.

Police should also prioritize minimizing the inconvenience of financial consumers, rather than pushing for efforts to seek punishment by quelling protesters.

In the same vein, effective countermeasures against public service-related employees’ scheduled strikes are necessary, as the unions of subway lines, gas companies and hospitals have unveiled their plan to stage protests between Sept. 22 and 29, respectively.

Meanwhile, it is hard to deny there is some paradoxical point in the government’s method to dealing with the unionized employees.

The Ministry of Employment and Labor has vowed to take a stern stance against strikes by public servants and bankers. It is also understandable that Minister Lee Ki-kweon clarified that the government would eventually “attain labor market reforms and respond against any unlawful strike actions by law and principle.”

However, the Labor Ministry -- in another aspect -- has the obligation to secure the rights and interests of workers in the nation as a state advocate by cracking down on unfair labor contracts. The Labor Ministry’s role should be distinguished from those of the Finance Ministry or the Justice Ministry, even during the strikes.

In a bid to shorten the strike period of the public sector, an option for the Labor Ministry could seek a compromise on performance-based pay. As rapid revamps always bring severe backlashes and a variety of side effects, the government could suggest a gradual step-based introduction.

On the other hand, the union also needs to accept the necessity of expanding flexibility in the labor market on a mid- and long-term basis.

For employment flexibility, financial firms and state-run agencies need to be entitled to segregate high-performing workers from low-performers. That is important for ultimate development and elevation of quality in public services.

As for the local financial industry, commercial banks or securities firms far lags behind major investment banks in the US, Europe and Japan in the overall competitiveness involving asset management skills and globalization.

It is hard to overcome the nation’s weakening growth potential in gross domestic product without raising per-capita productivity at workplaces.