![\"President](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/rcv.NEWS1.NEWS1.20260811.2026-08-11T112953_1008050248_POLITICS_I_P1.jpg\"\/ "\\"Lee")
President Lee Jae-myung watches video material at a cabinet meeting held at the Government Complex Sejong on the 11th. News1<\/p>\nPresident Lee Jae-myung watches video material at a cabinet meeting held at the Government Complex Sejong on the 11th. News1<\/p>\n
President Lee Jae-myung on the 11th ordered the Ministry of Employment and Labor to actively review setting clearer standards under the revised “Yellow Envelope Law,” an amendment to the Trade Union Act.<\/p>\n
“There have been calls to spell out standards for the cases that are clear-cut, and that argument has some merit, so review it seriously,” Lee said. His remarks amounted to a rebuke of the labor ministry, which has been reluctant to enact an enforcement decree defining matters such as the scope of labor disputes. Employment and Labor Minister Kim Young-hoon replied that the ministry would “review it more actively.”<\/p>\n
Speaking at a Cabinet meeting he chaired at the Government Complex in Sejong that day, Lee said: “From what I read in the news, someone said it should be made clear, with examples, whether something falls under a dispute covered by the Yellow Envelope Law, and there was criticism that the rules simply aren’t being written.”<\/p>\n
Kim explained that the ministry’s position was that the matter should not be handled through an enforcement decree, adding, “We have already issued everything through administrative interpretation.”<\/p>\n
Lee responded that administrative interpretation and setting standards defined by law are different. “There is a difference between the labor ministry saying in a ministerial ordinance that ‘this case does not apply’ and saying ‘the labor ministry’s view is that this is the correct interpretation,'” he said. “In other words, an interpretation and a directive are different. An interpretation is only an opinion,” he reiterated.<\/p>\n
Kim said he would “review it actively” but noted that “there could be criticism because the law contains no provision delegating this authority.” Lee again stressed that “setting the details needed to enforce a law is an executive power granted by the Constitution.” He added, “It is not that you cannot do it without delegation from the law; you can do it within the scope that does not conflict with the law and within the scope necessary to enforce that law.” He continued, “For example, if it is deemed to have exceeded that authority, it will be ruled invalid, and if not, it is all valid. So saying ‘we can’t set it because it isn’t in the law’ is not the case.”<\/p>\n
Lee added: “Because we rely too much on the National Assembly, the Assembly is overloaded, and because everyone tries to amend things through legislation when they could be handled through enforcement decrees, enforcement rules or enforcement guidelines, the number of laws the Assembly has to revise exceeds 10,000. That way nothing gets done, so legislate only what is truly necessary \u2014 and the same goes for other ministries.”<\/p>\n
At a Cabinet meeting on the 21st of last month, Lee had similarly said: “The Yellow Envelope Law expanded the scope of labor disputes, but aren’t disputes breaking out on the ground over the standards? Whether something applies or not has become a social flashpoint, and conflicts are erupting everywhere.” He directed the labor ministry to “sort out the guidelines corresponding to presidential decrees or enforcement rules before matters go to court.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Lee Jae-myung watches video material at a cabinet meeting held at the Government Complex Sejong on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115167,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[35452,9100,31,48932,146,1931,33,14785,7423],"class_list":["post-115166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-south-korea","tag-enforcement-decree","tag-kim-young-hoon","tag-korea","tag-labor-disputes","tag-lee-jae-myung","tag-ministry-of-employment-and-labor","tag-south-korea","tag-trade-union-act","tag-yellow-envelope-law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}