Employment Relations in South Korea: Evidence from Workplace Panel Surveys

280 Pages·2014·0.963 MB·English

by  Kiu Sik Bae (eds.)

Employment Relations in South Korea
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Employment Relations in
South Korea
Evidence from Workplace Panel Surveys
Edited by
Kiu Sik Bae
Korea Labor Institute, Seoul, Republic of Korea
© Korea Labor Institute 2014
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-42806-6
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in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2014 by
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ISBN 978-1-349-49133-9 ISBN 978-1-137-42808-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137428080
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Contents
List of Figures and Tables ix
Acknowledgments xvi
Notes on Contributors xvii
Part I Introduction
1 About the Study 3
Kiu Sik Bae
2 Workplace and Worker Characteristics in
Surveyed Workplaces 8
Ki-Min Kim
1 Introduction 8
2 Panel workplace composition and characteristics 9
3 Worker composition 13
4 Conclusion 23
Part II The Management of Employment Relations
3 Human Resource Management 27
Sang-Min Lee, Gyu-Chang Yu, and Se-Ri No
1 Introduction 27
2 HR management in general 28
3 Staffing (employment management) 34
4 Evaluation management 46
5 Conclusion 50
4 Wage Levels and the Management of Wages 53
Kye-Taik Oh
1 Introduction 53
2 The structure of wages 54
3 Profit-sharing programs 62
4 Severance pay and retirement pensions 66
5 Conclusion 68
5 Corporate Welfare and Maternity Protection Programs 71
Ka-Chung Boo
1 Introduction 71
v
vi Contents
2 Nonstatutory employee benefits 73
3 Flexible benefits plans 83
4 Maternity protection programs 85
5 Conclusion 87
6 The Labor Market and Industrial Relations for
Non-regular Workers 90
Jeong-Hyang Yoon
1 Introduction 90
2 Flexibility in personnel use 91
3 Issues in the management of non-regular workers 103
4 Conclusion 108
Part III Collective Industrial Relations
7 Analysis of the Functional Level of Labor Relations:
Focusing on Wage and Collective Bargaining and
Labor Disputes 115
Yong-Jin Nho
1 Introduction 115
2 Structure and process of wage bargaining 116
3 Outcomes of wage bargaining 122
4 Labor disputes 127
5 Conclusion 131
8 Trade Unions and Industrial Relations 136
Sung-Hee Lee
1 Introduction 136
2 Status of trade unions 136
3 Union leadership 143
4 Union organizing activities 146
5 The characteristics of industrial relations 148
6 Conclusion 152
9 Employment Relations in Non-unionized Workplaces 155
Jung-Woo Kim
1 Introduction 155
2 State of labor-management councils
(comparison of unionized and non-unionized workplaces) 156
3 Role and function of labor-management councils
in non-unionized workplaces 159
Contents vii
4 Participation in management of labor-management
councils in non-unionized workplaces 168
5 Conclusion 172
Part IV Work Organization
10 Education/Training and Skill Formation 177
Hong-Geun Chang
1 Introduction 177
2 Interest in skill levels and skill development 178
3 The state of education/training implementation 180
4 Education/training infrastructure 188
5 Summary and implications 191
11 Workplace Innovation and the Work Process 194
Seong-Jae Cho
1 Introduction 194
2 Overview of work organizations 195
3 Manufacturing industry characteristics 199
4 Management innovation programs within workplaces 201
5 Workplace innovation index 204
6 Conclusion 207
12 Long Working Hours 208
Kiu Sik Bae and Ki-Min Kim
1 Introduction 208
2 Implementation of the 40 hours working week 209
3 Overtime hours 213
4 Degree of long working hours 218
5 Shift work 221
6 Inclusive wage arrangements 224
7 Partial use of annual paid leave 226
8 Working time flexibility 229
9 Summary and conclusion 230
Part V Summary and Conclusion
13 Summary and Conclusion 237
Kiu Sik Bae
1 Stabilization and institutionalization of industrial
relations at the enterprise level 238
viii Contents
2 Narrower regulatory scope through industrial relations 244
3 Further dualization of the employment system 246
4 Human resource management and the
employment relationship 248
5 Changes in work organization 252
References 257
Index 263
List of Figures and Tables
Figures
3.1 Trends of introducing merit-based pay and annual
salary system at Korean firms 28
8.1 Trends in membership by the affiliated umbrella union 140
Tables
2.1 Characteristics of workplaces included in the panel 10
2.2 Ownership structure of private businesses by size 11
2.3 Financial performance, labor productivity, and
quality of goods/products or services 1 2
2.4 Subjective scores for relative financial performance and
actual revenue per worker 13
2.5 Subjective scores on relative turnover and the actual
turnover rate 14
2.6 Changes in the number of total workers by year 15
2.7 Worker proportion by occupation 17
2.8 Proportion of women workers 18
2.9 Comparison of the proportion of managers out of all
workers and the proportion of women managers out of
managerial workers 19
2.10 Youth, senior, and disabled workers by workplace
characteristic 20
2.11 Proportion of non-regular workers by workplace size,
industry, sector, and unionization 22
3.1 Changes in strategic HR management 30
3.2 External networking activities of HR departments 31
3.3 Corporate HR policy directions 33
3.4 HR planning 35
3.5 Recruitment methods for new inexperienced and
midcareer experienced workers 3 7
3.6 Hiring criteria for new employees and midcareer recruits 38
3.7 Method used to fill managerial positions 40
3.8 Internal job postings 42
3.9 Merit-based promotions 43
ix