One Year In
On the one-year anniversary of President Yoon Suk-yeol’s inauguration, management and labor are sharply divided in their evaluations of President Yoon’s labor policies.
The Korea Enterprises Federation (KEF), which represents the interests of employers, released the results of a public opinion survey of 1,000 Koreans on labor reforms one year after the new administration’s inauguration on May 9. The results said that 80.3 percent of respondents said labor reforms are essential to boosting Korea’s competitiveness. Among them, 22.9 percent said that they are very essential and 57.4 percent said that they are essential. By contrast, 17.0 percent said that they are not essential and 2.7 percent said that they are not essential at all.
When asked about how labor reform policies promoted by the Korean administration, such as establishing the rule of law and improving labor relations systems, will affect labor relations, 11.8 percent of them considered the labor reform policies very positive and 43.8 percent somewhat positive. The KEF emphasized that the majority of the general public in Korea has a positive evaluation of the labor reform policies promoted by the Korean administration.
On the other hand, somewhat negative opinions were expressed by 33.9 percent and very negative opinions by 10.5 percent, the KEF said.
The Korean labor world, on the other hand, strongly criticized the Yoon Suk-yeol administration’s labor policies over the last year. Labor, civic, and social groups held a series of press conferences and disapproved of President Yoon’s labor policies on May 9, one day ahead of the one-year anniversary of President Yoon’s inauguration. “We can no longer coexist with the Yoon Suk-yeol administration,” said members of the Korean Public Service and Transport Workers’ Union in a rally near the Sejong Cultural Center in the Jongno district of Seoul. “We will directly square off with the Yoon Suk-yeol administration with joint strikes in September and October after a general strike by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions in July.”