Strike at E.Land evokes ire of chamber leader

A leader of Korea’s top business lobby yesterday harshly criticized the ongoing labor dispute at E.Land, a leading retail giant, dubbing the lengthy strike “an affair unacceptable in a country ruled by law.”
Kim Sang-ryul, vice chairman of the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said in a meeting of business groups, “A company leader has the right and duty to find ways to more efficiently run human resources. It is hard to understand employees demanding that management withdraw a decision by holding illegal demonstrations.”
Some parts of Korean society seem to think that a company that converts non-regular workers into regular workers is “virtuous,” whereas a company that does not is “vicious,” the vice chairman said. Enforcement of the law designed to protect non-regular workers does not necessarily mean companies should change the status of all such workers, he said.
Under the new law, which took effect on July 1, non-regular workers can become regular workers if they continue to work at one workplace for two years.
The vice chairman’s remarks came more than a month after E.Land union members, mostly female cashiers, began sit-ins at stores to protest the company’s laying off of some 750 workers on June 30, the day before the non-regular bill went into effect. The company decided to use workers dispatched from outsourcing firms instead of non-regular workers.
E.Land management and labor union leaders on Monday again failed to reach a compromise, marking the eighth straight breakdown of negotiations. The next round of talks is scheduled for Thursday.
With little sign of the labor-management conflict being resolved, the deputy head of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, the umbrella union spearheading the E.Land protest, yesterday waged a one-man protest on a large advertisement signboard in western Seoul. Standing on a 20-meter-high signboard for around two hours, Joo Bong-hee demanded that the police arrest the chairman of E.Land, Park Sung-soo, while threatening to hurt himself with a knife.

By Seo Ji-eun Staff Writer [spring@joongang.co.kr]