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Gov't calls for financial transparency of nation's largest trade union 時間：2023-01-26 來源： http://hcqlnh.com/ 作者：開云體育app官方網站我要評論(0)

Truckers with the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions rally in Yeouido, Seoul, Dec. 10, to demand the central government maintain the minimum wage for freight transporters. Yonhap

Officials up in arms for new law requiring transparent bookkeeping by workers' unions

By Ko Dong-hwan

How the country's largest trade union spent the money it received from the government has become a new target of the central government and politicians, as the Yoon Suk-yeol administration gears up to tackle union activities.

Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, the labor minister and lawmakers from the ruling People Power Party (PPP) have called for the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) to enhance financial transparency. The union, with over 1 million members from across the country, is expected to accrue over 100 billion won ($77 million) from membership fees and government subsidies each year. But no law exists requiring the giant union to reveal how the money is spent. The union also limits its members from looking at the accounting records by revealing only a portion of the figures.

During a PPP meeting at the National Assembly on Tuesday, Rep. Joo Ho-young, the party's chairman, condemned the KCTU for its bookkeeping practices.

"It leaves its members in the dark while demanding their employers come clean, which is just selfish," Rep. Joo said. "Union officials say our move is a political crackdown. But if they are clean, there are no reasons for them to fear our move. In fact, they should have come up with their own way of keeping their accounting management more transparently already… If they keep up their flagrant disregard for the law, they will be shunned not just by the entire public but their own members as well."

The same day, Rep. Ha Tae-keung of the PPP proposed revisions to the country's Labor Union Act to require workers' unions at private and state-run companies with 300 or more members to report their accounting records to the central government. The revisions also required the big unions to prepare a specific list of accounting materials available for their members.

Prime Minister Han Duck-soo talks during a meeting between the presidential office, the Cabinet and the ruling People Power Party at his office in Seoul, Sunday. Yonhap

Tuesday's criticism follows a meeting between representatives of the presidential office, the Cabinet and the ruling party on Sunday at the Prime Minister's Office in Seoul, where the KCTU was the focus of discussions. They agreed that "the sun should shine more brightly on how workers' unions manage their bookkeeping so the concerned public can see it."

"The government from now on will strongly demand workers' unions to reveal what the public should know, such as transparency in financial management," Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said on Sunday. An unidentified official who attended the meeting reportedly said that it's been decades since anyone was able to monitor whether the KCTU abused its funds behind the backs of its members.

The government is interested in the KCTU's finances, because part of the union's funds came from subsidies from the Ministry of Employment and Labor as well as the Seoul Metropolitan Government. The authorities provisioned money to the union for the purposes of carrying out activities, events and research ― like improving gender equality and company organizational culture. The government said it needs to start keeping track of how these subsidies are being executed within the union.

The KCTU's 2021 budget included 18.4 billion won for the union's headquarters in Seoul, 55 billion won for the Korean Metal Workers' Union ― one of the KCTU's biggest subgroups ― and budgets for 15 other subgroups under the umbrella union. The union's regulation enables members or government officials to request to look at only the results of accounting calculations and not the detailed records of how the calculations were made. Whenever tens of thousands of members of the union took to the streets and demanded wage hikes or better working conditions, critics called it a paradoxical act committed by an "aristocratic union."

Observers have long accused the KCTU's problematic bookkeeping practices of helping some of its members secretly abuse the fund.

Last April, an official from one of the KCTU's subgroup unions was charged with embezzling hundreds of millions of won. Workers at POSCO, the country's major steelmaker, recently announced they will leave the umbrella union because they did not like the way the union kept to itself how the membership fees were being handled.

Compared to Korea, the U.S. enforces stronger laws against labor unions by requiring them to report their accounting records to the Department of Labor if they have a yearly budget of $250,000 or more. Workers' unions in the U.K. are also required by law to report their numbers to the central government.

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