Dual labor market deepens social divide
Chae Moon-su, 52, is a father with two teenage children.
He supports his family as a cable television installer for “t-broad,” one of the four leading cable TV companies in Korea.
“In recent years, I feel a constant fear of losing my job,” he said outside the National Assembly, Tuesday, where he joined his colleagues for a rally for non-regular worker protection.
He is an employee of t-broad in appearance. He wears the jacket and drives the car with the company logo and identifies himself as a t-broad employee when he visits clients.
But his salary comes from another company which won a contract from t-broad after sales services for customers.
His work hours are 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. from Monday through Friday, and he works on Saturday every other weekend.
With that, the amount of money he brings home every month is 2.35 million won ($2,086), lower than the average 3.9 million for a four-member household.
“Of course, that’s not enough,” Chae said. “Compared with 10 years ago, my monthly wage has in fact decreased.” His wife found a job recently as a cashier at a Lotte Mart to make ends meet.
He is confused about where he really belongs.
“I get my work orders from t-broad. We are in constant communication with them. They even evaluate my performance. But I am paid by another company.”
The main company contracts with other companies to lower the cost. With Chae’s company, it renews the contract every other year, and that creates double pressure on him and his 21 colleagues.
“We’re threatened to be fired by both companies.” He knows some colleagues do the same job but are paid more than him — at least double — because they’re paid by t-broad.
“I don’t feel good to get less money for the same work,” he said and that’s why he has attended the protest in front of the National Assembly for almost 50 days now. “We want to be directly employed by t-broad, not by a contract company. It’s only the decision of t-broad. We want the same money and protection for the work that we do as regular workers.”
Chae’s story illustrates well the status quo of non-regular workers in Korea.
According to statistics, at least 6.4 million workers in Korea have non-regular status, almost half of all people who live on paychecks.
Their average wage was 1.51 million won per month in 2016, less than half of 3.06 million won per month for regular workers.
Among the 6.4 million, only 40 percent get protection with social insurance — the rest are left to deal with it alone. Among the regular workers, however, more than 90 percent have it.
Not new, but so many
Non-regular employment is not a new concept.
It’s been around for decades in Korea and outside Korea. What’s unique in Korea is that its number grew exponentially after the 1997 financial crisis when companies were forced to slim themselves down to survive. Since then, contract work gradually became the norm and the practice only expanded.
Non-regular workers are everywhere. They are school teachers, bank clerks, social assistants at district offices, postmen, maintenance crews for buildings, truck drivers, insurance sellers and cable TV installers among others.
According to the OECD’s report on social cohesion, “the Korean labor market is characterized by its relatively strong dualism between regular and non-regular workers. Dualism is a key factor behind the growing inequality in pay and working conditions that feed into household income inequality and relative poverty making it one of the principle challenges to address.”
Lee Nam-sin, chief of the Korean Contingent Workers’ Center, an NGO helping non-regular workers based in Seoul, said: “I personally believe this issue the most urgent to achieve social cohesion in Korea. The majority of citizens live by paycheck-to-paycheck in Korea. The increasing number of non-regular workers exacerbates labor relations which is also a contentious issue in Korean society.”
Rosa Jang, who teaches sociology at Gyeongsang University and authored a book on non-regular workers, said the non-regular employment system deepens wounds between employers and employees.
“Non-regular workers benefit businesses. No doubt about it. But, that brings total destruction to the workers’ lives — uncertainty about employment, low income and discrimination.”
Jang also said the system even creates a conflict between employees.
“Low income and social protection aren’t the only disadvantage they suffer. Many say they experience discrimination at work because of their status.”
Jang quoted a non-regular bank clerk who was suspected of burglary at work just because of her employment status. “Many (non-regular workers) feel like they’re ghosts at work. What is also bad is that this breeds a perception that non-regular workers are somehow inferior to regular workers.”
The tension between regular and non-regular employees was in full display earlier this year.
In response to the government’s push to grant non-regular middle and high school English teachers regular status, teachers with regular status created a united front against it, claiming that they will not make any sacrifice for them in money and protection.
New President’s push welcomed
The good news is that President Moon Jae-in takes the issue seriously. He vowed to tackle the issue from his first day in office.
Moon released a master plan for changing all non-regular workers in the public sector to regular workers until he leaves office. His first target was Incheon International Airport and a follow-up move is, although slowly, in progress.
The Moon administration is also pushing to punish companies that contract their work to outside companies.
It ordered Paris Baguette, the No. 1 franchise bakery in Korea, to hire 5,309 bakers directly, instead of hiring them through contracting firms.
“A good community is where labor is respected and honored. In this sense, I support Moon’s drive. He’s got the point right. By reducing the number of non-regular workers, people will be happier with their lives, and that will make Korea a good place to live in,” Lee said.