A drastic slimming down of labor unions is brewing ― especially for those of Hyundai Motor and other industry heavyweights ― after the government outlined its system of "time off" payments for a reduced number of fulltime union leaders. The system sets the legal basis for paying the leaders when they take time off from their regular work to perform union activities.
Under the new quota, the management of Hyundai Motor with more than 45,000 union members will be allowed to pay wages to just 24 fulltime union heads beginning July, from the current 220.
The unions at Hyundai and other firms will have to either cut the number of leaders or find other financial resources to pay them.
A committee consisting of management and labor experts fixed the number of fulltime union heads to one for workplaces with fewer than 100 members and two for those with 200 to 300.
It has capped the upper limit at 24, with the number falling to 18 in two years.
In the case of Hyundai Heavy Industries, the number will fall to 15 from 55.
The time off came as a compensational and temporary measure to lessen the "damage" of the revised Labor Law.
Under the law that will go into effect from July, all workplaces will be allowed to have multiple unions.
Management will be banned from paying union leaders their wages since they are regarded as an "illegitimate payment of labor."
Since the revision, labor umbrella groups have urged the government for a grace period before the full implementation of the new rules.
The Federation of Korean Trade Unions, the more dovish among the two umbrella unions, denounced the plan Sunday.
"According to the law, the committee was supposed to announce the decision Friday, so the plan signed on Saturday morning is illegitimate," spokesman Kang Choong-ho said.
The militant Korean Confederation of Trade Unions requested lawmakers to redesign the program in such a way as to grant a longer grace period for unions to prepare to stand on their own feet.
Otherwise it has threatened to make a "dramatic protest."
Employers had called on the government to abolish company payments to fulltime unionists.
"Though the companies have no obligation to pay unionists who do not work for the company anymore, the bad habit was hard to kill and burdens businessmen," the Korea Employers Federation said in a statement.
According to a Ministry of Labor report, about 324 billion won has been paid a year in salaries to fulltime unionists.
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