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The National Assembly Futures Institute publishes reports that predict and analyze the changes in the future environment based on a comprehensive perspective, and derive mid- to long-term national development strategies in consideration of the preferences of the citizens
Series of Research on Long-Term Strategies for National Development Ⅴ Research on the Reform Agenda for Transformation of the Labor Paradigm

Date : 2019-12-31 item : Research Report 19-11 P.I : Jung Young-hoon

Series of Research on Long-Term Strategies for National Development Ⅴ Research on the Reform Agenda for Transformation of the Labor Paradigm

This research has two goals. The first is to analyze and evaluate the results, limitations, and failures of the reform policies of the labor market and labor-management relations in order to secure empirical evidence and methodological foundations to establish future development strategies for the country. The second is to redesign an alternative labor policy paradigm to respond to future changes in the labor environment, and present the preconditions and detailed innovation tasks for a successful transformation of the paradigm, to contribute to the establishment of national development strategies and to secure the active participation of the National Assembly.

It can be said that the basic direction of labor reform of the future Korean society is based on establishing a flexible safety model that meets the conditions and capabilities of Korean society. For a successful flexible safety model, there should be intricately designed strategies and conditions for exchanging interests based on trust. It may be possible to consider the social labor market system during the process of building such conditions and capabilities. The main goal of the social labor market system is to prevent wages and employment from being controlled solely within a company and socially adjust the gap between the advantaged and disadvantaged. It is necessary to expand the portion of the job-based labor market in the long-term through workplace innovation by reforming the seniority based wage system to match productivity and wage levels.

During the process, it is necessary to conduct labor-management negotiations to build social trust and improve productivity, while building up the conditions and capabilities for flexible safety. One of the most important conditions for the future labor market system to become a Korea flexible safety model is to promote labor market policies that secure a safe income for all laborers and improve their employability. In particular, there should be a comprehensive and effective employment safety net and active labor market policies to include laborers belonging to the secondary labor market within the system of a dual labor market.

The key to labor reform and designing labor market policies to create a future labor system lies in the future-oriented reorganization of the labor-management relationship system. The direction of labor reform for the future labor-management relationship system should be focused on integration and innovation. The major tasks for establishing a future labor-management relationship system based on integration and innovation are strengthening the weak labor-management organization, resolving conflicts of interest, and linking the company-multi-employer-state negotiations with social negotiations.

To do so, there should be a revitalization of user organizations, conversion and expansion of the labor-management committee to a general employee council, the expansion of collective agreements to secure multi-employer negotiations, greater investment in education to promote dispute adjudication in order to foster negotiation members, greater efforts to secure social agreement and group negotiations, and greater links with the employee representative system. In particular, the National Assembly needs to play a more active role in assessing the results of the labor-management relationship and forming a social consensus. The National Assembly should attempt to establish a governance structure for labor-management relationships.