A plan to require corporations to mandatorily record and manage workers' hours is being pushed. Once hours are recorded, it can prevent the misuse and abuse of the "inclusive wage system," in which only a preset wage is paid regardless of actual hours worked. Also, on days when workers take a half-day off in the afternoon, they had to work 4 hours in the morning and then leave only after completing a 30-minute break, but the system will be improved so they can leave early without a break.
The "task force for the roadmap to reduce actual working hours," which includes labor, management and government representatives and experts, held a public briefing on the 30th at the R.ENA Convention Center in Jung-gu, Seoul, and announced the "roadmap tasks to reduce actual working hours" that include these measures.
◇ Amend the law next year to regulate misuse of "inclusive wages"
Labor, management and the government will first push measures to prevent misuse of the inclusive wage system. They will formalize through legislation the current court standard that allows inclusive wages only as an exception when there is worker consent or when it is not disadvantageous. The idea is to agree in advance to include allowances, guarantee the full wage even if the promised working hours are not met, and pay the difference if hours exceed the agreed time.
They also decided to amend the Labor Standards Act and related regulations to make the recording and management of working hours mandatory. To this end, they plan to support the establishment of related IT systems at 200 business sites next year.
They will enact the "Act to support the reduction of actual working hours" in the first half of next year. It will include the legal basis for support such as ▲ the right not to receive unnecessary work orders outside working hours (the right to disconnect) ▲ establishing flexible working environments for work-life balance ▲ financial support for labor and management efforts to reduce actual working hours.
◇ Institutionalize 4-hour "half-day" work … discuss legal working-hour cuts later
They also plan to allow more flexible use of annual leave and break time. The Labor Standards Act will be amended so that young workers and workers with childcare responsibilities can use annual leave as a half-day (4 hours) for reasons such as self-development or care. They will also establish a provision prohibiting disadvantageous treatment to prevent harm in performance evaluations simply because annual leave was requested.
On days when workers take a half-day off and work only 4 hours, they will be allowed to leave 30 minutes early. For example, until now, when taking an afternoon half-day, workers had to work 4 hours from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., but because the 30-minute break had to be observed, they could only leave at 1:30 p.m. Going forward, the law will be amended to allow leaving at 1 p.m.
This roadmap does not include items such as legal working-hour reductions, the maximum daily working hours and the cap on overtime hours, the reference period for flexible work arrangements, rest between working days, premium rates for allowances, an increase in the number of annual leave days, and an annual leave savings system. Because labor and management differ, these will be discussed additionally later.
Meanwhile, labor, management and the government said in a joint declaration that they will "work to reduce annual actual working hours to the 1,700-hour range, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) average, by 2030." As of last year, Korea's annual actual working hours were 1,859 hours.