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The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) holds a press conference on Cheonggye Stream’s Jeon Tae-il Bridge on Nov. 12, a day before the 49th anniversary of the death of Jeon Tae-il, a workers’ rights activist who set himself on fire to protest poor labor conditions in 1970. The KTCU is calling for guarantees on labor rights for workers in small workplaces. (Kim Jung-hyo, staff photographer)

Lee Jeong-gi, now 51, began his life as an industrial trainee at Peace Market, Seoul, at age 18. He has spent the last 33 years since then behind a sewing machine, without ever being enrolled in Korea’s four mandatory insurance programs. He works more than 90 hours a week at a tiny sewing factory with fewer than five employees. Lower volume and high-handed clients have made his wages even lower than they were 30 years ago. A safari jacket that sold for 12,000 won (US$10.27) in the late 1980s recently dropped below the 8,000 won (US$6.85) mark. In order to make a living for a family of four, Lee has no choice but to work long hours.

“People say the world is different now, and they talk about the minimum wage going up and the government setting a 52-hour workweek. But as I see it, the lives of sewing workers at Peace Market, where Jeon Tae-il used to work, have been getting progressively worse,” Lee said. Jeon Tae-il was a workers’ rights activist who set himself on fire to protest unfair working conditions in 1970.

Early this year, a 32-year-old named Kim quit her job at a publishing company with 20 employees. During the year and five months she spent at that job, she wasn’t allowed to take any weekends off.

The company achieved success with a few bestsellers, but the growing workload resulted in workers routinely having to stay late and working on holidays. Kim never received overtime pay. Collective agreements between labor and management typically designate national holidays (excluding Sundays and Labor Day) as paid days off, but Kim’s former workplace had neither a union nor even a labor-management council. Workplaces with fewer than 30 employees were not obligated to establish or operate such a council. As a result, Kim was periodically ordered to come in on Saturdays and other ostensible “paid days off” for which the company was not required to provide compensation.

With Nov. 12 marking the 49th anniversary of Jeon Tae-il’s suicide, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) announced a campaign to fight for labor rights at “small workplaces” with fewer than 30 full-time employees. For the 50th anniversary of Jeon’s death and 25th anniversary of its establishment next year, the KCTU plans to demand the extension of Labor Standards Act provisions to workplaces with fewer than five employees, which have been exempt from terms concerning annual leave and overtime. As a first step, it plans to push for an amendment of the Labor Standards Act Enforcement Decree to allow relief applications in cases of unjust termination of employees at workplaces with fewer than five workers.

The KCTU is not the only group raising issues regarding labor right guarantees at small workplaces. More and more groups are working to protect the interests of workers at workplaces with five or fewer employees that are exempt from Labor Standards Act provisions. Former KCTU President Hang Sang-gyun launched Union Hada (Union Seeking Rights) on Oct. 9. Shortly afterward, the Youth Community Union established the center “Why Fewer than Five?” for reporting incidents of unjust treatment at small workplaces.

“Recognizing how the scope of labor right guarantees differs with the size of workplaces, which leads to disparities in job quality, we are attempting to effect change,” said Kim Young-min, secretary-general of the Youth Community Union.

Gwak I-gyeong, director of the KCTU’s unorganized worker strategy organization bureau, explained, “The number of union members affiliated with KCTU has passed 1 million since the current [Moon Jae-in] administration took office, and while the labor organization rate for workplaces with over 300 employees has reached 60%, it stands at just 0.2% for workplaces with under 30.”

“We’re launching the small workplace campaign from a stance of self-reflection, understanding that we need to reach out more to the small workplace employees who are suffering the must unfair treatment at their jobs,” Gwak said.

According to Statistics Korea data from March, over 5.8 million people were employed at South Korean workplaces with fewer than five employees in 2017. This translates into roughly 27% of all wage earners who are languishing in a Labor Standards Act blind spot. A survey of conditions at workplaces with four or fewer employees carried out by the Korea Labour Institute calculated average monthly wages of 1.38 million won (US$1,181) for wage earners at such workplaces as of 2016, or roughly half the 2.57 million won (US$2,200) average for all workers. Just 23.9% of them were found to be receiving paid leave, compared to 60.2% for all workers; 15.0% received overtime pay, versus 47.3% of all workers.

“In the past, employees at small workplaces have not been subject to the law’s protections because of issues with employers’ ability to pay, and it’s a welcome development to see the labor community working to improve treatment for them,” said Lee Byoung-hoon, a sociology professor at Chung-Ang University.

“Ultimately, the relevant laws are going to need to be amended, but we also need to have the government working to issue administrative guidelines that greatly reduce the number of Labor Standards Act exemptions granted to workplaces with fewer than five employees,” he said.

By Seon Dam-eun, staff reporter

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