The Korean Financial Industry Union(KFIU) which announced a general strike in the middle of next month said that "it is possible to recruit 29,000 new employees, if overtime hours of bank workers are solved," and called on the employers to root out overtime hours. KFIU also blamed the government that "the labor relations in the financial industry is intensifying to the point of collapse, due to the unchanged labor policy which had been in favor of the employers in the past."
KFIU held a press briefing at its head office on the morning of August 9 and announced that "KFIU resolves to conduct an all-out struggle to change the reality in which financial workers groan under the conditions of intensive performance achievement pressures and long work hours shrouded in the dark side of the record-high business performance."
After the centralized negotiations between the employers and union came to a rupture, KFIU accepted the mediation on wage hike and wage peak suggested by the National Labor Relations Commission. Even though KFIU had demanded 3.7% of wage hike, it accepted the mediation suggested rate of 2.6%. KFIU also agreed to the extension of two more years than the currently applied age for wage peak system suggested by the mediation. However, the Korea Financial Industry Employers Association rejected the mediation.
According to a survey on work hours of KFIU members, the average weekly work hours of a union member are 52.4 hours, or 2,724 hours a year. It means that a unionized bank worker overwork 644 hours per year. If 100,000 KFIU members work 40 hours a week(statutory weekly work hours), 29,000 workers can be hired, KFIU insists. In this regard, KFIU called on "the employers to accept the reduction of work hours and the new recruitment".
reported by Jeh Jeong-nam
translated by Kim Sung-jin