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Today's Hankyoreh published following interesting report:

In Daegu, metal workers take unique

approach to labor losses
 

Regular workers alternate participation in partial work stoppage, allowing irregular and migrant workers to keep their jobs

“Other migrant workers have lost their jobs, but we’re still working.” So says 30 year-old Munasic, of Indonesia, busily working a press machine on January 16 at Samwoo Precision Industries in Daegu’s Seongseo Industrial Complex. Eighteen of the automobile engine parts company’s 85 employees are migrant workers.

Hard economic times have meant that irregular and migrant workers are the first to lose their jobs, but the migrant workers at Samwoo Precision Industries, who because of the time limit set on how long they are able to work in the country are irregular workers as well, have been able to keep their jobs with the help of their union.

In December, the company suddenly announced that it would have to let migrant worker employees go because of “difficult company conditions.” Sales in November and December 2008 shrank by 30 percent of what they had been for the same period in 2007, and company executives said they had no choice but to reduce production and the number of employees.

The company’s branch union of the Korean Metal Workers’ Union said it would “absolutely” not permit that to happen. It suggested an alternative -- the company’s 40 regular production workers would divide themselves into two groups and alternate taking two-week holidays for the next three months. The company would then be able to apply for government financial assistance designed to help companies keep people in their jobs during temporary work shutdowns, allowing the regular workers to receive 80 percent of their wages during their off-times. The irregular migrant workers who as such are not able to pay into the same “employment insurance” program, and therefore are unable to receive the same assistance, would just keep on working.

Before the year was out, the union and the company had met and decided to put the union’s plan to use. The program of alternating the partial work stoppage went into effect on January 12.

“I was really worried about there being less work,” said Munasik. “It’s really fortunate I can go on working.”

“All we managed to do was prevent layoffs,” said KMWU Chairman Kim Tae-eop. “Now we need to find a better way to deal” with the reduced production. The company and the union are still going to have to find ways to have workers keep their jobs and maintain basic livelihoods at a time when both regular and migrant workers have already seen their actual wages grow smaller.

A Samwoo executive is frank about the company’s choices. “We came up with a temporary plan in response to union demands, but if the situation gets worse we’re going to have to come up with something else.”

The “Samwoo Precision Industries Branch Union of the Korean Metal Workers’ Union” began accepting migrant workers as union members in 2007, after the national union, seeking to embrace irregular workers, called for all workers at the same work site to be part of the same union. This was called the “one union per company principle,” a departure from the practice of having separate unions for migrant and other irregular workers. Migrant workers enjoy the same working conditions as regular employees under KMWU regulations. Last year “Eddie,” a 34 year-old Indonesian worker, was elected to represent the company union at the KMWU’s Daegu region conference.

 
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/334071.html