[EDITORIAL] Absurd demands

Month-long negotiations on key labor issues among union, employer and government representatives ended in failure on Wednesday. Unionized rail workers went on a strike the next day. In both cases, the main obstacles to negotiated settlements were unacceptable union demands.

The key issues at the tripartite negotiations were the statutory ban on corporate pay to full-time union officials and the statutory permission to different groups of like-minded workers at a workplace to organize themselves into separate unions.

The union representatives demanded the relevant labor laws be revised so that corporate pay to full-time union officials will be made negotiable between labor and management, instead of being banned. They wanted to keep full-time union officials on the corporate payrolls no matter what.

Unions are supposed to advance the interests of workers in their adversarial relations with employers. As such, they should pay their officials out of membership dues. But they are making a dubious demand for continued corporate pay.



Will unions be able to do their jobs properly if their full-time officials are paid by the employers? Even if they do, is the corporate pay morally justifiable? Isn`t there a danger of the continued corporate pay turning the legitimately adversarial labor-management relations into labor`s parasitical relations with management?

To those questions, the leader of the nationwide Federation of Korean Trade Unions offered a lame excuse when he said on Wednesday, "It is urgent to change the (public) perception of the labor movement and unions. Full-time union officials are not the vanguard of protest but doing an important job of bridging labor and management closer."

According to a survey, employers paid a total of 428.8 billion won to 10,583 full-time union officials last year, up from 343.9 billion won to 10,327 in 2005. They could have put the huge amount of money to better use by spending it on charities and other worthwhile projects.

Permitting multiple unions at a workplace is less controversial. Labor agrees with the government on the issue, but it is opposed to the government`s plan to make different unions send one unified representative to negotiations on wages and working conditions with management.

The minister of labor vows to surmount opposition from unions, which threaten to stage a general strike if their demands are not met, and to implement the statutory ban on corporate pay to full-time union officials and the permission to organize multiple unions at a workplace next year.

President Lee Myung-bak and the ruling Grand National Party have good reason to throw their full weight behind the labor minister`s hitherto unwavering resolve. The government should not delay the enforcement of the statutory regulations, as it has done in the face of a union threat to launch a nationwide protest since they were written into law 13 years ago. Another delay would further damage the government`s authority.

Yet, the ruling party is currying favor with labor, with its floor leader committing himself to an "alliance in policy" with the Federation of Korean Trade Unions. The floor leader says his party will be more resilient in accommodating the nationwide umbrella labor group`s demands.

There is no denying that every vote from union members will count to the ruling party when an election comes around. But the party will do well to keep in mind that consistency in policy will prove to be no less important.

The party`s backpedaling would embolden the striking railroad workers to hold onto a 6 percent pay increase when their government-invested corporation, Korea Railroad, has an annual operating loss ranging from 600 billion won to 700 billion won.

Instead, the party is urged to help turn the hemorrhaging corporation around by convincing the union to accept a management-proposed pay cut and make other concessions, including a cut in the number of full-time union officials, which now stands at 61.