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Labor union bill squeaks through committee vote

Published: 30 Dec. 2009, 21:32

A bill to revise regulations governing labor unions and union wages was approved yesterday by the Labor Committee of the National Assembly.

The committee held a voting session in the afternoon, but only the ruling Grand National Party lawmakers and the committee’s chairwoman, Choo Mi-ae of the Democratic Party, attended.

The eight Grand Nationals on the committee approved the bill proposed by Choo and moved it forward to the legislative committee.

Ahead of the voting, Grand Nationals scuffled with lawmakers from the Democratic and Democratic Labor parties as the opposition representatives tried to stop Choo from hosting the committee deliberations.

The Grand Nationals and Choo eventually blocked the opposition lawmakers from entering the conference room and approved the bill.

The Democratic Party called the passage “a lowdown coalition between Choo and the ruling party,” and vowed to stop it at the legislative committee from voting at the main session.

The legislative committee is chaired by another DP lawmaker, Lew Seon-ho.

“She insulted the party and joined hands with the Grand National Party, and it can never be tolerated,” said Lee Kang-rae, the DP’s floor leader.

The bill allows multiple labor unions to open in a single workplace starting in July 2011. The ban on companies from paying wages to full-time union representatives will be enforced starting next July.

If the revision bill is not approved at the main session, no grace periods will be given to both changes, and the multiple union system and the wage ban will take effect starting Jan. 1.

The legislative and judiciary committee yesterday approved three bills linked with budgets. Though the Grand Nationals demanded 30 bills linked with budgets to be voted on, committee chairman Lew only allowed voting on the three, including bills to revise corporate and income tax laws.

While the committees made small progress in moving forward bills, the ruling and opposition parties continued their “two-track” negotiations on the four rivers project budget and other budget items. No deals were struck as of 5:30 p.m. yesterday.

The GNP and the DP each held an assembly of their lawmakers and discussed what they should do with the 2010 budget bill. Without the legislature’s budget approval by today, the Lee Myung-bak administration will have to operate the government with a provisional budget.

The Democrats continued their occupation of the conference room of the Budget and Accounts committee, which began on Dec. 17.

The Grand Nationals continued to pressure the Democrats, making clear that they will use the rule of the majority if negotiations with the opposition party fail before the ultimate deadline of today.

“Now, time has run out,” said Ahn Sang-soo, the GNP floor leader. “As we have promised, we will do our best to reach an agreement, but if no deal is made, we just have to handle the situation with the rule of majority.”

The Grand National Party sent a text message to its lawmakers, readying them “to stay overnight at the legislature.”

The Grand National Party has 169 lawmakers in the 299-seat National Assembly, while the Democratic Party has 87.

The Democrats also readied for war. “The GNP is negotiating, but is also preparing to ram through bills at the same time,” said DP floor leader Lee. “We must maintain our vigilance.”

Although the ruling and opposition parties had approved 71 bills on Tuesday, the lawmakers failed to open a voting session on time yesterday.

The two sides had scheduled the session at 2 p.m., but the Democrats were no-shows as of yesterday evening.

By Ser Myo-ja [[email protected]]