The Democratic Party of Korea said on the 29th that Coupang is still not carrying out the first and second rounds of social agreements in the parcel delivery sector and urged the company to promptly submit a concrete plan.
The Democratic Party's "Committee for Protecting the Underprivileged" (Euljiro Committee) held the fifth meeting of the "social dialogue body for the parcel delivery sector" at the National Assembly that day and discussed, with labor groups and others, a review of the implementation of the first and second social agreements on measures to prevent overwork deaths among delivery drivers and ways to improve issues related to holiday and dawn deliveries. Democratic Party lawmakers Kim Nam-geun, Lee Yong-woo, and Park Hong-bae attended the meeting.
After the meeting, lawmaker Kim Nam-geun said at a briefing, "Other delivery companies are largely implementing the first and second social agreements, but Coupang did not take part in the agreement at the time, raising the question of by when it will implement them." He added, "In particular, regarding the deployment of substitute workers for parcel sorting, Coupang said it would test this at multiple business sites and submit an implementation plan, but no concrete plan has emerged yet," noting, "We again told the company to submit it."
Earlier, the first and second social agreements prepared in 2021 included: ▲ deployment of dedicated sorting personnel ▲ the parent courier company bearing delivery drivers' social insurance premiums ▲ bans on working more than 60 hours a week and 12 hours a day. Coupang did not participate in the talks at the time, saying it was not a parcel carrier, but later received approval as a parcel carrier from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, making it subject to implementing the agreements.
Pressure on Coupang also continued over the issue of holiday deliveries. Kim said, "Other delivery companies such as CJ Logistics have about eight days off a year, but Coupang keeps saying it is 'difficult,' so there were opinions on how many days off a year it should have."
To prevent the talks from spinning their wheels due to Coupang's lukewarm attitude, the Democratic Party decided to push a plan to conduct an intensive review of Coupang's noncompliance with the first and second agreements at a separate table. Lawmaker Lee Yong-woo said, "We have been calling for more than a month to make the implementation of the first and second agreements clear, but the company has yet to bring a plan," adding, "We agreed that convening only Coupang at a separate table to sort out issues such as unpaid social insurance premiums would keep the meetings from going nowhere."
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party said it aims to draw a social agreement before the Lunar New Year holiday after intensive discussions starting in Jan. on contested issues such as transitioning to a five-day workweek in the parcel sector and dawn delivery.
The position is to aim for a long-term transition to a five-day workweek while preparing a roadmap such as deploying substitute workers. Kim said, "In the process of moving to five-day-a-week deliveries, we are narrowing differences by choosing a holiday on a transitional basis or by not disadvantaging the delivery rate performance evaluation," adding, "We agreed to hold intensive discussions starting in Jan. and, if possible, draw a social agreement before Lunar New Year (Seol)."
Lawmaker Lee Yong-woo also said, "We decided to take up the direction of introducing a five-day workweek as a point of contention and discuss it," adding, "Separately, we plan to move quickly by also taking up the introduction of mandatory annual holidays as a point of contention." He added, "We view it as risky to maintain ancillary tasks such as small-item sorting or collecting fresh bags as now, and if ancillary tasks are excluded, we decided to make the appropriate daily and weekly working hours a major point of contention."