Revival of Tripartite Talks?
The Plenary Committee of South Korea is expected to be put back into operation. Launched in January 1998, the presidential commission for tripartite talks among the government, employers and employees came to a halt in January last year as the Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU) withdrew against former President Park Geun-hye’s unilateral labor reform policy.
Unlike her, South Korea’s new President Moon Jae-in is putting a social consensus first concerning labor and employment issues. This is why the FKTU is likely to come back to the negotiating table. Still, the FKTU is planning to make its decision after looking into how the new government changes the structure of the commission.
A change in the structure of the commission is highly likely to occur in the near future. This is because a job creation committee is scheduled to be launched as the new government’s control tower covering employment policy and tripartite cooperation. Then, a change in the roles of the Plenary Committee is inevitable.
In the meantime, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions’ return to the Plenary Committee is still distant. “The committee has already become a mechanism by which the government adheres to its unreasonable labor policy by forcing the labor community to make a concession against its will,” the KCTU claimed on January 12. The confederation withdrew from the committee 18 years ago.