Considerable Side-Effect of Negotiations With No Principle

Concerning that the management agreed with pilot unionists on the 25-30 percent reduction of the foreign pilot ratio by 2007, experts pointed out that the employer virtually justified the infringement of the employers` right to the personnel management.

The agreement reverses the stream of globalization and the market economy and eventually will be a stumbling block of the liquidization of the labor market, which has been considered as high priority for the investment of the foreign companies.

The on-strike unionists of the National Universities requested the preservation of the cumulative retirement allowance of the state-owned industries, which is in fact on the way of abrogation.

In terms of the Daewoo Motor sales to the General Motors, KCTU and the Metal Worker`s Federation with the `drain-out` theory of the national property, dispatched `the delegation to oppose the sales,` which have disturbed the sales negotiation. They also sent `a do-or-die corps to arrest Kim Wu-Jung` early this year and drastically reduced the sales of Daewoo cars in Europe.

After the management accepted many requests of the unions that had no relevance to the essential meaning of the union, anxieties have increased about the side effects of the negotiations that had ignored the principles.

Experts attribute the responsibility to the government, which repeated the autonomous negotiations. And, while uttering empty threats of the harsh treatment to the unions during the strike, the government in fact led the employers to make a practical agreement.

Korean Air agreed on the issues of foreign pilots but they still complained that the agreement would make another issue of the disputes in the future. Considering the supply of the human resources, the company might have to employ more foreign pilots. Therefore, some experts think that they might have made a behind-the-scene-deal under the influence of a third person.

Ye Jong-Tae criticized that the unionists must give up their obsolete way of protest that request unreasonable demands beyond the management-labor negotiation and connect their strikes to the political issues.

The repeated request of the union after the strikes is the demand for the disaffirmation of the legal punishment of the union leader who had led the illegal strikes. The employer and the unionists of the Korean Air agreed on the fact that the management would send a petition to the related institutions to minimize the legal punishment of the union leaders.

Labor Minister Kim Ho-Jin commented that the Korean Air strike was a kind of `mutant strike,` pointing out that the negotiation for wages was disturbed by the request of the union leader for the exemption from the civil and criminal liabilities of their illegal strikes.

Last year, the union leaders of Hotel Lotte continued their demonstration for a month after the settlement of the negotiation, requesting the immunity from their criminal responsibility.

Kim Jang-Ho, Professor of Economy at Sookmyung Women`s University, said, ``The governmental responsibility is to correct the wrong traditional practice that muddle with the work. If someone violated the legal procedure, the responsibility should be questioned.``

Jung Young-Gwan yongari@donga.com