As of the end of last year, it was found that the Federation of Korean Trade Unions had 73,544 more members than the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions. Since 2020, the Federation of Korean Trade Unions has surpassed the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions in terms of membership for four consecutive years.
Analysts attribute this to the results of the Federation of Korean Trade Unions expanding its focus on the public sector and Samsung Group affiliates after being surpassed by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions in membership size for the first time in 2018.
According to the '2023 National Labor Union Organization Status' announced by the Ministry of Employment and Labor on the 18th, the Federation of Korean Trade Unions had a total of 1,160,162 members as of the end of last year. This is 73,544 more than the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, which had 1,086,618 members.
The Federation of Korean Trade Unions has been surpassing the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions in membership numbers for four years since 2020. In 2020, the Federation of Korean Trade Unions had 1,153,863 members, which was 19,807 more than the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, which had 1,134,056 members during the same period. In 2021, the Federation of Korean Trade Unions had 1,237,878 members, 25,339 more than the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions. Although the membership of both unions decreased in 2022 compared to the previous year, the Federation of Korean Trade Unions still had about 20,000 more members.
Compared to 2020-2022, the Federation of Korean Trade Unions expanded the membership gap with the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions by more than three times last year. While the number of unions within the Federation of Korean Trade Unions increased by 136 to 2,461 from the previous year, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions saw an 8 union decrease to 217.
The Federation of Korean Trade Unions and the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions are known as the 'two major unions' in Korea. As of the end of last year, 82% (2,246,780) of the total 2,737,000 union members belonged to these two organizations. In the labor community, the union with the larger membership between the two is given representation as the 'primary union.' For this reason, each union focuses on securing new establishments annually to increase membership.
Meanwhile, as of the end of last year, the unionization rate in Korea was 13%, a decrease of 0.1 percentage points from the previous year. Although the number of union members increased by 15,000 from the previous year, the total number of workers eligible for unionization increased by 320,000. The unionization rate is calculated by dividing the total number of union members by the total number of wage workers engaged in economic activities.