Working days lost to strikes are on course to hit their highest level in nine years, since 2017. Data obtained from the Ministry of Employment and Labor by the office of Kim Wi-sang, a lawmaker of the People Power Party, showed on the 11th that 489,190 working days were lost in the first nine months of this year. The figure is already approaching 500,000 and is 24.2% higher than the 393,744 days lost for all of last year. A rise in lost working days is treated as a warning sign for labor relations. It means production lines are being halted by labor disputes far more often.
Lost working days peaked at about 2.03 million in 2016, during the political turmoil surrounding the impeachment of former President Park Geun-hye, and had declined every year since. What stands out this year is that the number of labor disputes through August stood at only 58.5% of last year's annual total, yet lost working days rose 12.1%. One likely cause is an increase in large-scale strikes at big companies with large workforces over demands such as bonuses set at a fixed percentage of pay. On the ground, subcontractor unions have been pressing to bargain directly with prime contractors since the so-called yellow envelope law took effect in March, and some observers expect lost working days to exceed 800,000 for the full year. Even so, the labor ministry has taken a complacent view, saying the recent increase stems from routine wage and collective bargaining at a few large workplaces.
South Korea already carries the stigma of being a republic of strikes because of its severe labor disputes. Making matters worse, confusion on the ground has deepened since the law took effect over how to interpret who counts as an employer. In the case of the union at Samsung Biologics, demands have gone beyond the prime contractor-subcontractor relationship to seek bargaining with other affiliates within the group, an outcome that is hard to accept by common sense. National policy projects, including the relocation of public agencies to provincial areas and a semiconductor cluster in the Honam region, could also be held back by the law.
From the time it was introduced, there were widespread concerns that the law's ambiguous provisions would fuel labor-management conflict. Stopgap fixes such as non-binding enforcement guidelines will not prevent court battles between labor and management. The spread of demands for bonuses set at a fixed percentage of pay across industry is also largely a product of the law's vagueness. The government should move quickly to substantially revise and supplement the law so that labor rights and management rights can coexist.