The National Agricultural Cooperative Federation and the labor union of local agricultural and livestock cooperatives (Financial Industry Union National Federation of Cooperatives Headquarters) are clashing over a change to the ordinary wage rules. The union said the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation is seeking to revise the pay rules to minimize the scope of ordinary wages and stated it will continue a hard-line struggle.
According to the financial sector and the NongHyup union on the 15th, the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation is pushing to add a "statutory ordinary wage" item to the employee pay rules. It created a separate item in addition to the existing calculation and computation method for ordinary wages.
The newly established statutory ordinary wage included bonuses paid regularly and uniformly, such as meal allowances, business activity allowances, and regular bonuses. The calculation method pays 1.5 times the ordinary wage (hourly rate) for overtime pay and the same level as the existing ordinary wage (1.0 times) for annual leave pay.
Under the existing calculation method for ordinary wages, the prescribed working hours are divided by 183 hours, then 1.83 times the ordinary hourly wage is multiplied and paid as an allowance. The National Agricultural Cooperative Federation plans to pay the amount corresponding to the statutory ordinary wage if it is higher than the current ordinary wage.
The union argues that applying this would neutralize the existing ordinary wage calculation method and narrow the scope of recognition for ordinary wages. It is estimated that an employee who received a 600,000 won allowance for 20 hours of overtime a month would see the allowance reduced to 430,000 won if the statutory ordinary wage method is applied.
Until last month, the union held eight working-level talks with the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation on expanding ordinary wages, but the two sides failed to narrow their differences. The union then declared the talks had broken down and launched a struggle. On the 10th, the union held a rally in front of the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation in Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, and is pushing for a second rally in the capital. The union is also requesting a meeting with National Agricultural Cooperative Federation President Kang Ho-dong.
A union official said, "The National Agricultural Cooperative Federation's proposal is an attempt to neutralize the expansion of the scope of ordinary wages and again forces sacrifice and concessions on agricultural and livestock cooperative workers."
In response, an official at the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation said, "The agreed (existing) ordinary wage is determined by the company's regulations or collective agreements, and the statutory ordinary wage is defined by the Labor Standards Act," adding, "As the union demands, selectively picking only the favorable parts of the statutory ordinary wage standard and the agreed ordinary wage standard to calculate statutory allowances is not permitted under court precedents." The National Agricultural Cooperative Federation's position is that this is an internal rule revision in accordance with court precedents, and the union's demands run counter to the precedents and the Ministry of Employment and Labor guidelines.