A labor union made up of employees of local NongHyup and livestock cooperative unions on the 30th protested that the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation is seeking to revise pay rules so that base pay is calculated lower. They said NongHyup is pushing the revision illegally and urged the labor authorities to conduct a labor inspection.
The National Federation of Cooperatives under the National Financial Industry Union (Financial Industry Union) held a rally that morning in front of the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation in Seodaemun District, Seoul, and claimed, "The National Agricultural Cooperative Federation is ignoring the intent of the Supreme Court ruling and taking the lead in cutting and extorting the wages of workers at agricultural and livestock cooperatives."
They said, "We will conduct a thorough investigation through labor inspections by the Ministry of Employment and Labor (MOEL) into the intentional reduction and omission of the scope of base pay," adding, "We will prevent the nullification of the Supreme Court ruling through the collective agreement."
The Supreme Court ruling the union mentioned refers to a ruling in Dec. last year that broadened the scope of what qualifies as base pay. The Supreme Court determined that even regular bonuses with certain conditions attached, such as being paid only to those currently employed, constitute base pay if they are paid regularly and uniformly.
Base pay is compensation set to be paid regularly and uniformly to workers and is used as the basis for calculating various allowances and severance pay.
If the range recognized as base pay expands, the amount workers can receive as allowances or severance pay increases. That increases the burden on the company by that much.
According to the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation, the NongHyup union, and others, the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation on Sept. 12 sent an official notice to its subordinate agricultural and livestock cooperatives to amend the "employee pay regulations" and the "contract employee operation regulations" and to establish the "base pay calculation guidelines." The change would add a separate "statutory base pay" item in addition to the existing base pay calculation method.
This item includes bonuses paid regularly and uniformly, such as meal expenses, business activity allowances, and regular bonuses. The National Agricultural Cooperative Federation plans to pay the amount corresponding to the statutory base pay if it is higher than the current base pay. If the rules are changed, about 86,000 executives and employees at 1,110 agricultural and livestock cooperatives nationwide will be affected.
The union argues that under the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation's new rules, the allowances employees receive will decrease. An employee who worked 20 hours of overtime in a month and received a 600,000 won allowance would see it reduced to 430,000 won under the new rules.
The union held eight working-level consultations with the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation through Aug. but failed to narrow differences. The union then declared the talks broken down. The union is also demanding a meeting with National Agricultural Cooperative Federation President Kang Ho-dong.