Business-Labor Talk Focuses on Harmony

Leading figures of the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) and the Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU) held a meeting.

Some appraise the move as a turning point of management-labor relationship in that they have tentatively agreed to found a “fund for business and labors relations’ development” aimed at studying and establishing friendly relations between management and labor.

On July 12, this paper confirmed that the eight representatives, including Kang Shin-ho, the chairman of the FKI and Lee Yong-deuk, chairman of the FKTU, had convened for a luncheon meeting at Lotte Hotel in Seoul on July 10.

This is the first time an official meeting was held between the two organizations.

For the FKI, Kang and three others – Cho Gun-ho, standing vice-president, Ha Dong-man, a senior executive, and Lee Seung-chul, a junior executive – attended the meeting. For FKTU, Lee Yong-deuk, the chairman of the FKTU, Yu Jae-sub, chief vice-chairman, Jang Dae-ik and Kim Sung-tae, standing vice-chairmen represented the labor unions.

After the labor side asked for a dialogue in an effort to develop cooperation between the two, the business side’s acceptance led them to the unprecedented meeting.

Lee explained in a telephone interview with this paper, “To avoid the current aggressive labor movement, we will take the first step to build a win-win relationship between management and labor. Also, I thought talks with the FKI, the representative of the business community, would be necessary for the move.”

At this meeting, they shared a view to form a “fund for mutual development.”

A high-ranking FKI official said, “Lee came up with the idea in the meeting and called on the FKI to be supportive. In response, Kang showed his full understanding with regard to business-labor ties, and he promised his support.”

The two are planning further discussions through regular meetings to discuss the fund and other measures to improve the management-labor relationship. The fund is to be set up for alleviating conflicts through profound dialogues and spreading new paradigms of cooperation into as many enterprises as possible.

Jeong-Hun Park sunshade@donga.com