Ahead of the March rollout next year of "the yellow envelope law, a new labor law aimed at strengthening the bargaining rights of subcontract workers" (revised Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act Articles 2 and 3), a broad framework has been presented for what units subcontractor labor unions can use to bargain with parent corporations. The gist is to allow separation of bargaining units so that parent companies and subcontractor unions can negotiate individually, but if labor and management cannot agree on the specific method of separating bargaining units, the Labor Relations Commission will decide.
The Ministry of Employment and Labor (MOEL) said on the 24th that it will preannounce, from the 25th to Jan. 5, a partial amendment to the enforcement decree of the Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act that sets procedures for bargaining between parent companies and subcontractors.
With the yellow envelope law, a new labor law aimed at strengthening the bargaining rights of subcontract workers, which passed the National Assembly in Aug., subcontractor unions gained a path to bargain directly with parent employers. But because there were no standards for "how" corporations should bargain with numerous subcontractor unions, confusion persisted on the ground. Business groups argued, "We must unify the bargaining channel into one to prevent a proliferation of talks," while labor groups worried, "If subcontractor unions conduct bargaining by merging with parent-company unions, the interests of subcontractor unions will be hard to reflect."
The government decided, in principle, to respect bargaining methods agreed to by labor and management. Parent and subcontractor unions may conduct joint bargaining together with corporations, or they may bargain independently.
The issue is when labor and management do not agree. If they apply for the "single bargaining channel" procedure, the Labor Relations Commission will decide how to separate bargaining units. As a rule in this process, the commission plans to separate "parent-company unions" and "subcontractor unions" into different bargaining units. It will then decide how to divide bargaining units among subcontractor unions by considering commonality of interests, the need to form uniform working conditions, and the possibility of conflict among unions.
The ministry explained that, through this procedure, bargaining units for subcontractor unions can be separated into roughly three types. First, if subcontractor unions differ markedly in their characteristics, they can be separated by each subcontractor, such as "Subcontractor Union 1," "Subcontractor Union 2," and "Subcontractor Union 3." They can also be grouped by similar subcontractors according to job duties. For example, those performing job A can be divided as "Subcontractor Union 1·2·3," those performing job B as "Subcontractor Union 4·5," and those performing job C as "Subcontractor Union 6·7." All subcontractor unions can also be grouped into a single block to conduct bargaining. In line with the separated units, each will select a bargaining representative and proceed with bargaining procedures with the "parent employer."
For parent–subcontractor bargaining to operate smoothly, the role of the Labor Relations Commission becomes more important. Accordingly, the ministry plans to increase staffing at the commission.
Minister Kim Young-hoon of the ministry said, "This enforcement decree revision preserves, as much as possible, the principle of labor-management autonomy in the bargaining process while guaranteeing the subcontractor unions' substantive right to collective bargaining in line with the intent of the revised Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act," adding, "Within the year, we will prepare guidelines on determining employer status and the scope of labor disputes to resolve uncertainty at industrial worksites."