POSCO and the Plant Construction Workers’ Union negotiating teams pose for a photo during their first meeting for prime contractor negotiations at POSCO’s Human Resources Development Institute on the 11th. Photo courtesy of the Plant Construction Workers’ Union
POSCO has begun full-scale negotiations with subcontractor labor unions as a prime contractor, the first such talks since South Korea’s revised labor union law took effect.
The Korean Federation of Construction Industry Trade Unions, affiliated with the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), said it held an introductory meeting with POSCO on the 11th at the company’s Human Resources Development Institute in Gwangyang, South Jeolla Province, to open prime-contractor negotiations. The plant construction union is made up of members from unions at POSCO’s subcontractors.
The introductory meeting is a preliminary step before labor and management enter main negotiations. The plant union and POSCO will discuss their demands in a second round of talks — the main negotiations — on the 26th. The plant union plans to bring industrial safety onto the bargaining table as part of its demands.
This introductory meeting is the first since the revised labor union law took effect in March. Of the 16 prime contractors the plant union asked to negotiate, POSCO is the only one that agreed. The separation of bargaining units is seen as the key factor that allowed negotiations between POSCO and its subcontractors to begin. The Labor Relations Commission divided the bargaining units for POSCO’s subcontractor unions into three groups: the plant union and the metal workers’ union, both under the KCTU, and a coalition of POSCO partner and supplier unions under the metal workers’ federation of the Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU). POSCO also completed an introductory meeting with the FKTU-affiliated union late last month.
The plant union explained that “the reason prime-contractor negotiations had been delayed was the single-channel bargaining system for designating a representative union,” adding that “because the bargaining units were separated, prime-contractor negotiations were able to proceed as scheduled.”
Attention is also turning to whether the number of workplaces holding prime-contractor talks, which has slowed since the revised labor union law took effect, will grow. As of the previous day, only 26 workplaces had entered prime-contractor negotiations. That is because moves to contest the legitimacy of prime-contractor negotiations are spreading across workplaces, with Hanwha Ocean, for example, pursuing legal action.