Ordinary Wages
It has been found that more than half of the top 300 companies in Korea have yet to deal with their ordinary wage issues. Nine of them are currently in litigation about it, with five of those planning to bring their cases up with the Supreme Court.
The Federation of Korean Industries and Research & Research recently conducted a survey on their ordinary wage-related negotiations for 2014 and released the results on Jan. 13. One third of the 300 companies recording the highest sales answered the survey, and only 44 percent of the respondents said that they adjusted the scope of ordinary wages through labor-management talks last year.
Out of the 44 companies, only 34 widened their scope from a year ago, while the others made no change. The 34 increased their ordinary wages by an average of 17.9 percent year-on-year. The increase in ordinary wages was because various types of bonuses and allowances were included in the scope, in view of their regularity and uniformity, in accordance with the ruling by the Supreme Court Full Bench.
According to the Korea Employers Federation’s data, for reference, the companies that increased their ordinary wages last year showed an average ordinary wage increment of 13.8 percent, 4.1 percentage points lower than the top 30 average.
Out of the respondents, 44.4 percent mentioned that they adjusted the scope mainly for the Full Bench judgment. Another 23.6 percent answered that they adjusted it to within the allowable range of total labor cost increases.