▲ President Yoon Suk Yeol speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the presidential office in Seoul on June 13, 2023. (Pool photo) (Yonhap)

presidential office-labor bill

Pro-labor 'yellow envelope' bill could imply existing laws need not be kept: presidential office

By Lee Haye-ah

SEOUL, June 26 (Yonhap) -- A pro-labor bill pushed by the main opposition Democratic Party could imply that existing laws need not be kept, raising the need to look at it more seriously, a presidential official said Monday.

The DP, which holds the majority in the National Assembly, has vowed to pass the so-called yellow envelope bill through a plenary session later this week despite opposition from the ruling People Power Party.

The bill guarantees the bargaining rights of indirectly employed workers and prohibits litigation for damages and provisional seizures against unionized workers with the aim of suppressing their strikes. This could make it difficult for employers to file complaints against illegal strikes by their workers and exempt laborers from liability for participating in illegal strikes.

"The yellow envelope bill could end up implying that existing laws need not be kept, so it needs to be looked at more seriously and we will closely follow deliberations at the National Assembly," the official told reporters.

The bill dates back to 2009, when unionized workers of carmaker SsangYong Motor Co. staged a high-profile strike to oppose a massive layoff. Five years later, the Supreme Court declared the strike illegal and ordered the workers to pay 4.7 billion won (US$3.6 million) in compensation to the company and the state.

A number of civic activists and citizens have since delivered yellow envelopes, each containing 47,000 won in donations, to support the SsangYong workers, raising the need to amend the trade union law in favor of striking workers. The revision has since been nicknamed the "yellow envelope bill."

President Yoon Suk Yeol has exercised his veto power twice, once against a grain bill requiring mandatory government purchases of surplus rice and once against a nursing bill aimed at stipulating the roles and responsibilities of nurses and improving their working conditions.

He has been expected to consider using the power again to veto the yellow envelope bill.

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