South Korean society reopens the door to overwork

Cheong-hee Yu(KILSH) 

MAR 1 2024

中文    한국어    日本語

Supreme Court rulings and Department of Labor administrative interpretations open the door to overwork

In December 2023, the Supreme Court ruled that "whether overtime work in a workweek exceeds 12 hours should be determined based on the number of hours worked in excess of 40 hours in a workweek, without considering whether the working hours exceeded 8 hours per day.

Company A, which cleans airplane cabins, required employees to work 15 hours per day for two of the five days and 6 hours each of the other three days. Based on an 8-hour workday, this would mean 14 hours of overtime in a workweek, but the total number of hours worked in a workweek would be 48 hours, which does not exceed the overtime limit of 52 hours. The company was put on trial for working overtime in this way a total of 130 times between 2013 and 2016, and was found guilty in both the first and second trials. However, the Supreme Court interpreted the law as not regulating overtime on a daily basis.

Article 50 of the Labor Standards Act stipulates that working hours in a week cannot exceed 40 hours, excluding breaks, and working hours in a day cannot exceed 8 hours, excluding breaks. Article 53 of the same law states that working hours can be extended by 12 hours in a week if agreed upon by the parties. However, the Labor Standards Act does not specify a limit for overtime work per day. Since the Labor Standards Act does not specify a limit for overtime hours per day, it is only necessary to work no more than 52 hours per week. This is a mechanical ruling that betrays the efforts of workers to reduce working hours and does not take into account workers' health, leisure, etc. because there is no legal provision.

Prior to the Supreme Court's ruling, the Ministry of Labor and Employment counted all hours worked in excess of 8 hours per day as overtime, and considered it a violation of the overtime limit if it exceeded 12 hours per week. However, the Ministry of Labor changed its administrative interpretation after the Supreme Court's decision, as if it had been waiting for it.

South Korea's government hasn't gotten over its labor flexibility regret

In early 2023, the Ministry of Employment and Labor announced plans to flex the 52-hour workweek, but workers fiercely opposed the reform, which would have allowed them to work up to 69 hours a week. The government was forced to withdraw the reform. However, the Korean government, unable to give in to companies' demands for flexible working hours, announced in November 2023 that the government would maintain the 52-hour workweek, but would allow flexibility for some industries to work more when they are busy and take time off when they are not.

It's been said before, but South Korean workers work very long hours. As of 2022, the annualized hours worked per employed person in South Korea (1,901 hours) is the fifth-longest among all 38 OECD member countries and 149 hours longer than the OECD average (1,752 hours). Compared to the past, South Korea's working hours are steadily decreasing, but they are still long. Workers dying of overwork are constantly in the news.

Working two long days and three short days does not eliminate fatigue on the second day, as the Supreme Court ruled. According to the Supreme Court ruling, it is possible to work up to 21.5 hours a day, excluding breaks. If you work for 15 hours or 21.5 hours a day, wouldn't you just want to sleep after work the rest of the day? How do we ensure the health and leisure time of these workers? It's no wonder we're reminded of the "crunch mode" in the gaming industry, which took the lives of workers.

While there seems to be some social consensus on the agenda of shorter working hours, capital and the pro-capital government respond by expanding the space for irregular labor. Supreme Court rulings that heavily influence lower court decisions and rapidly changing labor ministry administrative interpretations have made it difficult to regulate the daily working hours. It is time to fill the legislative gap to regulate the daily working hours and to strengthen our struggle for shorter working hours and the elimination of irregular work.