Urgent tasks for women workers in Korea(Jun. 1999)
1. Grim realities facing women workers in Korea
Economic crisis hit Korea November 1997 worsened women's status in this
country. In return for International Monetary Fund's bailout package, Korean
government promised massive layoffs. Since then female workers become major
targets of layoffs in the workplace. The media in Korea is boosting this by
initiating "Female workers should return to their home," and "Let's cheer up
fathers" campaigns. Encouraged by such social sentiment led by major media,
conglomerates and corporate started cutting female workers en masse before
laying off male workers. To force women workers to tender resignation,
employers use various unfair labor actions such as transferring them to
branches locate in remote provincial areas, making them to separate with
their husband and children) or branches to be shut down soon. Nevertheless
most male-dominated trade unions are keeping silent so far, and sometimes
back up these discriminative and unfair treatments toward women workers.
Korea stands at 31st on The World Index of Gender Equality and 83th on
Women's Equal Rights Index. It is widely believed Korea is 'Paradise Lost'
for women in their twenties. News that young female college grads killing
themselves in despair because they can't get any jobs is not surprising one
any more in Korea. Gender discriminative practices such as forcing female
workers to resign as they get married or pregnant still prevail in this
country. If a married or pregnant woman resists to the pressure and fights
back for keeping her job, she usually pays huge price in return for retaining
her job. Sometimes she has to suffer insults such as "Is your family in such
dire poverty as to force you to earn living?" or "Is your husband
good-for-nothing as to make his wife earn living?" In many cases resistant
woman workers would find their desk in office disappear overnight or other
employee doing their job when she returns from vacation. A married female
teacher in a private school, who resisted to pressure to resign, was ordered
by principal to bring her father to the workplace. This case vividly shows
patriarchal gender discrimination at workplaces in Korea, where women are not
even regarded as grownups.
Though the rate of women participating in the nation's economy increased to
49.5 percent in 1997 from 37.2 percent in 1965, still 98 percent of women are
employed in the lowest-level positions. Wage gap between women and men is not
being narrowed. Average wages of women workers are only 57 percent of those
of men. This comes from the situation that most women are employed at
unskilled and supportive jobs with low wages. The fact that employing periods
are usually short and temporary makes the situation worse. The Equal
Employment Law, that bans gender discrimination in payment by stipulating
same wage for same job, was implemented in 1987. However gender
discrimination in payments still remains in indirect forms. Such
discriminating practices would not change as long as most employers in Korea
hire women labor force only at low-wage jobs.
Protection of maternity is also stipulated in the Labor Standard Acts of
Korea.. Nevertheless paid maternity leave is limited to less than 60 days,
which is far less than what International Labor Organization Convention
requires. Costs for protection of maternity is burden of individual parents,
not of society. For example, since childcare leave in Korea is not paid
leave, only 17.1 percent of working parents use childcare leave and 2.5
percent of them are fathers.
Maternity is despised rather than respected in Korea. It is not unusual that
employers put pressure on pregnant female employees to resign. Typical way of
forcing them to resign is ordering overtime work or assigning them excessive
amount of works. Sometimes employers transfer them to branches, which is so
far from their home that it is virtually difficult for them to commute.
Since economic crisis hit the nation, working conditions has been worsening.
Labor intensity is being heightened and work- time stretched. This make many
workers feel extremely stressful and women workers' health is deteriorating.
Increasing use of harmful materials in manufacturing process also contribute
to health deterioration of women workers.
However female workers, compared to male workers, have more difficulties in
being diagnosed as having occupational disease.
In 1997 the Statistic Bureau in Korea reported that 71.7 percent (63.4
percent in 1980) of female workers in Korea were employed at firms with less
than five employees. The Labor Standard Acts, the Equal Employment Law,
workers' accident compensation insurance, unemployment insurance do not apply
to these small businesses . That means 71.7 percent of Korean female workers
don't benefit from basic legal rights and basic social security such as
maternity leave or childcare leave. Further more there is no allowance for
night work or overtime work, no monthly or annual leave. If a worker is laid
off, the person is not entitled to receive unemployment insurance. If a
worker gets occupational disease or run into an accident at the workplace,
the person is not entitled to demand medical treatment to the employer.
Medical insurance subsidized by employers is not provided to them.
One of the serious problems female workers face in these small businesses is
sexual violence such as sexual harassment, rape which are rampant. However
when sexual violence occurs, the female victim, not the male offender, are
one who should quit the job.
In this male-dominated society, male offenders usually escape serious
punishments. Most times warning is maximum penalty what male offenders get.
Sexual violence is usually committed by male managers, male colleagues,
employees of client firms and customers. In most workplaces, especially in
small businesses, managing jobs are exclusively filled with males. Thus
female workers, usually in low level positions supervised by male managers,
find it hard to take actions against sexual violence in fear of losing their
jobs.
With Korean government focusing on providing low-cost female workforce to the
labor market workers in making policy on women workers, the percentage of
female workers in part-time jobs and in home subcontract works has increased
sharply.
Full-time female workers are only 29 percent of the total female workforces.
Rests of female workers are employed in irregular jobs. Female workers in
irregular positions include dispatched workers, contract workers whose
employment period extended every certain period and part-time workers. These
female workers in irregular jobs earn 60 percent of what regular employees
get for same jobs.
Instability in job security, mainly due to temporary employment contracts,
cause many problems for women workers. Arbitrary dismissal is prevailing.
Many basic rights of women workers such as protection of maternity are not
allowed. Social security such as pension, medical insurance, unemployment
insurance, is also out of reach for them.
Though number of women workers doing small subcontract works is increasing
sharply, there are no social safety nets to protect them from poor working
conditions. Many of them suffer from unstable job security caused by unsteady
business, frequent delays in payment and threatened health and safety.
Overall working conditions of female workers in irregular jobs are expected
to deteriorate further as Law on Dispatching Workers was passed at the
National Assembly Feb.1998. Women union members and labor activists opposed
to passing the law in fear that legalization of dispatching workers will
further aggravate labor exploitation and human rights abuse in the
workplace.
Though overall working conditions of female workers are deteriorating, the
government is not taking any action to prevent it. With unemployment rate of
female workers increasing, government policies to boost female employment are
urgently needed. Yet the government haven't introduced any policies such as
helping women job seekers or increasing childcare facilities. The government
apparent purpose is lowering unemployment rate by dissuading women from job
seeking. Currently 40 percent of unemployed are giving-up job seekers, most
of them women.
2. Urgent tasks for women workers in Korea
The International Monetary Fund's (IMF) management of Korean economy, which
started November 1997 with its bailout loan to the nation, forced Korean
economy to accept neo-liberalism and flexibility in labor markets. The
nation's hardest-hit victims of neo-liberalism and labor-market flexibility
have been women workers, who became prime targets of dismissal from their
jobs. Many of women workers, lucky enough to retain their jobs, were forced
to be reallocated from full-time jobs to non-full-time jobs.
However the government reactions to mass layoffs of women workers were
lackluster and belated. Discrimination reporting centers were set up and the
government-led campaign to help the unemployed women, in charge of household
economy, were held nationwide. But the government failed to provide more
fundamental policies for preventing mass layoffs of women workers and
lowering the jobless rate of women workers. No wonder that last year Korea
ranked as 83rd (73rd in 1997) among 102 countries in the World Index of
Women's Rights.
The Seoul Women's Trade Union was launched Jan.10, 1999, against such a
background of widespread unemployment among women workers in Korea. Many
women workers are knocking on the door of the SWTU for seeking help. A women
worker came to the SWTU after she was dismissed from a local government where
she worked as a daily-based employee more than three years.
The local government replaced her with two public workers. The local
government replaced her with the public workers simply because to get
subsidy, provided by the central government when hiring public workers. Her
wage was lower than that of the public workers and she had not received
weekly allowance, which the public workers were entitled to receive. "It is
heart breaking to me is that I can no longer support my three children," the
woman said. "Since I could not earn living, the eldest one ran away from
home. But the most painful thing is that that I can't afford my children's
school tuition fees."
Since she has to take care of her young children, she is currently looking
for a job that gives her enough time to take care of her children. Only
low-wage jobs that usually pay less than 500,000 won per month are available
to her. Considering high consumer price in Korea, 500,000 won per month is
not enough even for feeding three children.
Since economic crisis hit the nation late last year, many families in Korea
have been reportedly suffering hunger, but the government failed to take
necessary steps to help the suffering families. Still in many workplaces,
including in most conglomerates with no labor union, women workers are being
forced to quit when they get married or get pregnant. If women workers want
to retain her job after being married or pregnant, they have to fight against
their employers. More often than not, the women workers have to swallow
various insults and indignities. Many women workers fighting against the bad
practice find their desks disappearing overnight without any notice to them.
SWTU action plan for achieving equality at the workplace and promote women
workers' rights are as follows:
Creating of jobs through shortening labor time is also crucial in creating
jobs for women workers. Especially for enhancing labor production, we believe
that shortening of labor time is necessary.
We urge the government to implement the women employment quota system, a
progressive anti-discrimination measure. We suggest that as a first step the
women employment quota system be implemented in the central and local
governments, public corporations and public organizations. In line with that,
we oppose to any plan of privatization of public corporation. Public
corporations are potentially important employers of women workers when the
women employment quota system implemented.
We urge strict legal restriction on labor-dispatching, short-time labor and
temporary labor for protecting women workers from being exploited. Especially
short-time labor must be restricted less than 30 hours per week. Currently
many part-timers usually work more than 30 hours per week, the maximum
working time for short-time labor. We also worry the situation where more and
more women workers are forced to accept temporary or part-time jobs.
We urge the government to allow the unemployed their rights to join in trade
unions. As the government has not allowed the unemployed their rights to join
in trade unions, SWTU, the first trade union in Korea allowing the unemployed
to join in as its members, still remains as an illegitimate organization.
We urge the government to simplify the qualification for unemployment
allowance. Many unemployed women workers are not entitled to receiving the
allowance because the qualification is limited to laid-off workers. Though
many women workers leave their jobs with tendering resignation, in fact in
most cases, they are forced to quit. Many factors, such as poor working
conditions, threatening to quit for married or pregnant women, severe
discrimination against women and dismal future for their career, is driving
women workers from their jobs. As a result, of women workers covered by
unemployment insurance, only 9.8 percent actually are entitled to receive the
allowance. This means that most of unemployed women don't get any financial
help.
We urge the government to get rid of old-fashioned patriarchal system in
which father is head of a family. Considering the fact that more and more
women is taking charge of household economy, we believe that various measures
to support women in taking charge of household economy are necessary. We
urges to build more public childcare facilities implement paid childcare
leave and expand school lunch programs to high school. We also suggest
introduction of 'the father quota system,' currently being enforced in
Norway.
The Labor Standard Act must be fully applied to small enterprises with less
than five employees, where 71.7 percent of women workers are being hired.
Currently these small enterprise with less than five employees are exempted
from several important provisions of the Labor Standard Act, such as paid
leave, limitation on overtime work.
Job training programs for the unemployed usually requires at least six months
to finish the courses. Some job training programs for high-tech skills
requires more than one year to finish the courses. This means that for
successful job training programs, financial support to the unemployed
trainees, especially for their cost of living, must be provided for at least
six months. And job-training programs for public work, which provides
relatively generous financial support to trainees, must be expanded to more
women unemployed.
With recent revision of the Laws on Equal Opportunity of Employment, indirect
discriminatory acts against women are regarded as discrimination. Any
indirect discriminatory acts against women must be strictly regulated
because, more often than not, these indirect acts consequently lead to
serious discrimination against women workers.
by Seoul Women's Trade Union(SWTU)
