With the implementation of the yellow envelope law, a new labor law aimed at strengthening the bargaining rights of subcontract workers (amendments to Articles 2 and 3 of the Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act) set for Mar. 10, the government and the business community will meet to iron out last-minute sticking points.
According to the government and the industry on the 16th, Minister Kim Jung-kwan of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources, Minister Kim Young-hoon of the Ministry of Employment and Labor (MOEL), and executives of the Korea Enterprises Federation and major corporations such as Samsung, Hyundai Motor, and POSCO plan to hold a closed-door meeting on the 21st. The venue has not been decided.
A government official said, "To increase predictability regarding the interpretive guidelines for the Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act and to ensure a smooth landing on the ground, the two ministries are consulting with both labor and management," adding, "The two Ministers plan to hold a session to hear the views of the corporations' leaders."
The reason the ministers in charge are engaging directly is that concerns about the yellow envelope law, a new labor law aimed at strengthening the bargaining rights of subcontract workers, continue. Earlier, the Labor Ministry unveiled a "draft interpretive guideline for the Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act" in Dec. last year and set an administrative notice period through the 15th. With the end of the notice period, this appears to be a final opportunity to reflect the business community's position before announcing the final version.
The guideline sets detailed criteria for "who is an employer and what constitutes the subject of an industrial dispute." The industry broadly agrees with "structural control," which the government presented as the core criterion for employer status. Structural control is recognized when a prime contractor essentially and continuously restricts decision-making authority over matters such as personnel management, working hours, and work methods of workers affiliated with a subcontractor.
However, there is controversy over "economic dependency," which is to be considered as a supplementary indicator. If a subcontractor is in an exclusive transaction relationship with the prime contractor or highly dependent on it for sales, the likelihood of recognizing employer status increases. Critics warn that even normal subcontracting relationships could be drawn into disputes over employer status.
Another point of concern is the structural contradiction between this guideline and the Serious Accidents Punishment Act. The Serious Accidents Punishment Act requires prime contractors to actively intervene to prevent safety accidents involving subcontractor employees. But this guideline instructs that such safety control be used as grounds for "recognizing employer status." Strengthening safety management to comply with the Serious Accidents Punishment Act could make a firm an "employer under the Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act," while reducing intervention to avoid employer status could expose it to the risk of "violating the Serious Accidents Punishment Act."
Meanwhile, not only the business community but also the labor community opposes the guideline. Unlike the business community, which argues the criteria for recognizing employer status are overly broad, labor groups say they are too strict. The Labor Ministry plans to soon finalize the interpretive guideline and, through revisions, reissue for public notice the enforcement decree of the yellow envelope law, a new labor law aimed at strengthening the bargaining rights of subcontract workers, which is the higher-level regulation over the guideline.