Tens of thousands of South Korean workers took to the streets during May Day rallies across the nation on Sunday opposing state-led labor market reform plans.

An estimated 80,000 laborers belonging to the nation’s two biggest umbrella trade unions – Federation of Korean Trade Unions and Korean Confederation of Trade Unions -- participated in demonstrations in 15 cities.

The unionized workers called for a withdrawal of labor reform plans which they see as making it easier for employers to dismiss workers, expanding low-quality and temporary jobs in the labor market.

The proposed bills, which have been pending at the National Assembly for seven months, would extend the hiring of irregular workers and expand sectors in which companies can use temporary workers. The government is promoting the bills to boost the slowing economy and create more jobs, especially for the youth and the elderly.

It also presented administrative guidelines to ease restrictions for employers to fire underperforming workers and change company rules without unions’ approval. The unions fear that the guidelines would prompt more employers to adopt a performance-based wage system.

At Seoul Square in front of the City Hall, some 30,000 unionists from the FKTU staged a rally from 1 p.m. and marched about 2 kilometers across the downtown area. The May Day rally, which is usually packed with older workers, drew thousands of young people.

They chanted, “Let’s fight against the evil bill and put up placards reading “Opposition to easier dismissals,” “Stop labor market reforms” and “Immediately abolish the government’s guidelines.”

“The government is pushing for easier lay-offs, pay cuts and creation of irregular workers under the name of labor market reforms,” Kim Dong-man, chief of the FKTU, said in an opening speech.

Kim also urged the government to scrap the state-led restructuring for the declining shipping and ship building industry. “Restructuring sacrifices only laborers, causing massive lay-offs and wage reductions. Conglomerates responsible for mismanagement should be blamed for the current situation and economic crises, not laborers.”

The financial authorities released its plan to restructure the country’s shipbuilding and shipping sectors suffering from massive losses in the wake of diminishing global demands and competition from Chinese rivals.

The government demands major shipping companies such as Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine, Hanjin Shipping and Hyundai Heavy Industries sell assets, cut workforce and wages and streamline their business plans in return for financial aids.

In Daehakno, some 15,000 unionists from the second-largest umbrella union KCTU held a rally against the government-led market reforms and restructuring plan. They marched about 3.3 kilometers from Jongno 5-ga to near Gwanghwamun Square following the rally.

"Restructuring and mass lay-offs are to redeem the capitalists and government, while shifting the responsibility for economic crisis to laborers,” said Choi Jong-jin, an acting head of the KCTU. “What we need now is job sharing, pro-hiring policies.”

The KCTU vowed to stage an all-out strike in early July to “guarantee basic labor rights” and “stop restructuring measures.”

Some 200 migrant workers and their supporters were among the KCTU unionists holding a rally in central Seoul. They called for abolishment of the Employment Permit System which does not allow foreign laborers to move their workplaces.

“Our struggle against the government’s oppression on migrant workers continues because the government’s attitude has not changed at all,” said Udaya Rai, president of the Seoul-Gyeonggi-Incheon Migrants’ Trade Union.

“The government should revise its Employment Permit System if it wanted to stop migrant workers from turning into unregistered employees rather than crack down on them. They contribute more to Korea than they receive from the government. Let’s fight in unity.”

Among the 18.4 million workers in South Korea, 1.9 million of them have joined either the FKTU or KCTU, meaning that the two unions represent 10.3 percent of the Korean workers in the country, according to the Ministry of Employment and Labor.

The May Day rallies came amid heightened wrangling in the political realm over passage of the market reform bills, with the ruling Saenuri Party having lost its majority at the National Assembly in the April 13 parliamentary election.

While President Park Geun-hye administration remains determined to pass the market reform bills through the parliament, the opposition parties pledged to block them.

In a statement to mark May Day, the right-wing Saenuri Party said that the political parties should join forces to push for labor market reforms, citing the sluggish economy and youth unemployment.

Left-leaning The Minjoo Party of Korea said in a statement: “(The) Park Geun-hye administration is attempting to push the laborers to the corner even further through labor reforms. It is an old-fashioned economic theory to revive economy at the expense of laborers.”

The centrist People’s Party said, on the other hand, that the government needs to seek a “broad consensus” from the public before pushing for labor market reforms. “The government argues that restructuring and labor market reforms can solve the economic crisis, but that is not necessarily true.”

By Ock Hyun-ju (laeticia.ock@heraldcorp.com)