‘Parachute’ CEO to start work at IBK after being blocked from job

A former Blue House secretary will be working his first official day as the new CEO of the state-owned Industrial Bank of Korea today, after he was physically blocked from starting work earlier this month.

Yoon Jong-won was blocked from entering his office Jan. 3 by the bank’s union workers, who were protesting the appointment of the former Blue House official and calling him a “parachute.”

The top job at the bank was held by internal officials for 10 years.

But the bank’s union representative on Tuesday announced that the union was withdrawing its protests after the government and the ruling Democratic Party on Monday agreed with the union workers to improve the nomination process in the future.

Lee In-young, the floor leader of the Democratic Party, on Tuesday publicly apologized to the labor union and promised to prevent future nominations of parachute officials.

“The Democratic Party and the Korean Financial Industry Union in 2017 has agreed to work on improving the system that would prevent parachute officials but weren’t able to keep the promise due to lack of communication with the Industrial Bank of Korea,” Lee said. “I express my deepest regret as the representative of the Democratic Party.”

Lee added that as it was agreed with the union, the ruling party agreed to take more responsibility to make the system for selecting the executives of state-owned financial companies more transparent and fair.

The apology is believed to have been the official acknowledgement from the government and the ruling party that Yoon is a parachute official.

Industrial Bank of Korea apologized in a statement Tuesday, adding it was thankful to the government and the ruling party in acknowledging its wrongs and committing to changes.

BY HAN AE-RAN [lee.hojeong@joongang.co.kr]