Corea, República de - Interference with trade unions (2012)

In January, the Ministry of Employment and Labour rejected a National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) recommendation from October 2010 to reduce its interference in labour union establishment procedures and union membership criteria. It also reportedly ignored demands to allow temporarily unemployed workers and job-seekers into unions. In May 2010, a senior policy advisor of the Trade Union Advisory Committee (to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development TUAC-OECD) stated that the Korean government is interfering excessively with labour-management relations and that the policy of limiting wage payments to unionists did not conform to international standards. Trade unionists also criticised a new Trade Union Act that went into effect in July 2010 and which reduces the number of full time union officials. The number of full-time unionists in workplaces with less than 300 workers has reportedly decreased by 25%.