The Korean Public Service and Transport Workers' Union(KPTU) and Euljiro Committee of the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea which was established to protect vulnerable groups of workers from employers' abuses on August 17 jointly organized a testimony conference on the employment situation of temporary education workers at a seminar room in the National Assembly.
In Korea some 400,000 temporary education workers, which is about 43% of the total education workers, are currently hired at the primary and secondary schools nationwide.
These workers are short-term contract teachers, clerical workers and school lunch catering service workers for students.
Temporary teachers suffer from the employment insecurity, because the employment contract is renewed every year. The hourly wage of lunch catering service workers is only 6,360 won(US$5.75), 330 won(US$0.30) more than the hourly national minimum wage and even worse during summer vacation period they are not paid at all.
The workloads on the fixed-term clerical workers are getting heavier with other chores including tea-serving and errand-running.
The testimonies presented to the conference voiced up the importance to resolve the employment insecurity and to eliminate the discrimination between full-time regular workers and fixed-term contract workers through the regularization of precarious employment.
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