Labor Trends

1. Unions to continue their activities against the government and ruling party moves for labor reform

 On 20 November, the Federation of Korean Trade Unions held a press conference regarding the five labor reform bills proposed by the ruling Saenuri Party. Kim Dong-man, head of the FKTU, said that the FKTU may abrogate the Tripartite Agreement if the government and ruling party continue unilaterally pushing ahead with the labor reform bills.

The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions participated in an illegal and violent rally against labor market reform on 14 November. Its second all-out strike is scheduled for 5 December.

In addition, the office coordinating joint strike efforts by manufacturing workers under these two umbrella labor organizations staged a rally against the five labor reform bills in Yeouido on 23 November.

The Public Transport Workers Union and the Health & Medical Workers Union began their anti-government protests in front of the government complex in Seoul from 17 November, opposing government plans to introduce wage peak systems and to normalize public agencies.

2. Unionization rate remains unchanged at 10.3% (as of 2014)

According to the MOEL research report, ‘2014 Trade Unions in Korea’ released on 17 November, the total number of trade union members was found to have reached 1,905,000 as of end 2014, an increase of 58,000 over the previous year. As the number of wage workers eligible to join trade unions also jumped by 448,000 from a year ago, the unionization rate in Korea remains unchanged from the previous year at 10.3%.

[Figure 1] Unionization Rate & Trade Union Membership in Korea

By umbrella labor organization, the FKTU had the largest membership of 843,174 (44.3%), while the KCTU had 631,415 members (33.1%), with the remaining 430,881 members (22.6%) belonging to independent trade unions.

[Table 1] Union Membership by Umbrella Organization (Unit: persons)

* KLUC: The Korean Labor Unions Confederation