Reporter's notebookTaming unions should not be end goal of Yoon's labor market reform

• Published date: 28 February 2023
• Publication title: The Korea Times

President Yoon Suk Yeol appears to be highlighting the widening generational divide in Korea's labor unions as a strategy to secure a stronger argument for his initiative to reform the country's labor-management relations.

However, calls are growing for the president to avoid exploiting the divide as a tool to tame labor unions, and instead approach it as a chance to blend diversity into Korea's labor culture.

"Labor unions' attempts to protect their vested interests are tantamount to stealing the future from the younger generation," Yoon said during a Cabinet meeting, Tuesday.

Yoon has been criticizing Korea's "militant" labor unions and promoting his plan to overhaul the country's inflexible labor practices. He made these comments against a backdrop of a widening generation gap among unionists in recent years.

In March 2021, LG Electronics' young office workers formed their own labor union in protest of the company's largest labor union's focus on issues related to manufacturing workers only. The new union sought to represent the voices of office workers and distanced themselves from political matters. It quickly gained over 3,000 members.

This inspired a slew of young employees from other big-name companies, including Hyundai Motor, to organize their own labor unions and raise critical opinions about the political campaigns of existing unions.

This resulted in the establishment of a council of such unions on Tuesday. Named the Refresh Workers' Council. It is comprised of minor labor unions from eight companies, including LG Electronics, LG Energy Solution, Seoul Metro, Kumho Tire and Korea Gas Corp. The council now has 6,000 members. Next month, that number will increase to 8,000 when two more labor unions will join.

As the council aims to "focus on the fundamental issues of labor unions, not political slogans that conventional unions have been advocating," criticism has mounted from existing unions.

Seoul Metro's largest union, which is under the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), said in a statement that "the claim that labor unions should keep their distance from politics stems from a complete misunderstanding of the history and foundation of labor unions."

Against this backdrop, President Yoon's comments highlighting the generational divide are being interpreted as a tactic to use the younger generations' negative sentiment toward existing unions as a way...