Umbrella union raps gov't scrutiny of labor unions' accounting practices

All News 16:01 February 20, 2023

SEOUL, Feb. 20 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's biggest umbrella labor union on Monday lambasted the government's scrutiny of labor unions' accounting practices, calling it labor repression and vowing to wage an all-out fight against it.

Labor is one of the three areas that President Yoon Suk Yeol has pushed to reform, along with education and pensions. As part of efforts to ensure accounting transparency of unions, the government had required large unions with 1,000 members or more to submit their account books between Feb. 1 and 15.

As less than 40 percent complied with the demand, the labor ministry gave another two weeks for compliance, warning those who fail to submit accounting records will be subject to fines and on-site investigations.

"President Yoon's pinpointing (of labor as one of) three areas of corruption is threatening the independence of labor unions," an official of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) said at a press conference.

The official said the current labor union law does not permit an investigation into labor unions by the administrative branch, and the government's threat to investigate them runs counter to the labor union law.

KCTU officials also accused the Yoon government of repressing labor unions across industries, employment types and regions and vowed an "all-out fight to safeguard the identity of labor unions."

The umbrella union also refuted a ruling party lawmaker's claim that the KCTU and another umbrella union, the Federation of Korean Trade Unions, received 152.1 billion won (US$117.4 million) in subsidies from the labor ministry and regional governments between 2018 and 2022.

The KCTU received no other subsidies from the government than the 3 billion won the government has provided the organization in subsidies for office rental expenses under the labor-management relations support act, Han Sang-jin, a KCTU spokesman, said.