2024-08-01 16:51:17
Office of the President: “The Right Person to Complete Labor Reform”
Wild: “Are we leaving the Buddha in the hands of far-right YouTubers?”
KCTU: “Yoon’s anti-labor personnel disaster”
President Yoon Seok-yeol nominated Kim Moon-soo, chairman of the Economic, Social and Labor Committee (ESLC), as the new Minister of Employment and Labor on the 31st. However, with the nomination of candidate Kim, who has a hard-line stance on labor issues such as the Yellow Envelope Act (amendment to the Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act), the confrontation between the ruling and opposition parties is expected to intensify from the personnel hearing process.
Chief of Staff to the President Chung Jin-seok held a briefing at the Presidential Office in Yongsan on the same day and said, “At a time when the employment and labor sector is facing a mountain of pressing issues, I believe that a candidate with experience in the workplace, the legislature, and the administration is the right person to complete the labor reform task through dialogue and compromise with various constituents.”
Candidate Kim, a labor activist, entered the National Assembly in 1996 as a member of the New Korea Party and served as Gyeonggi Province Governor from 2006 to 2014. He was also praised for resuming the labor-management-government “social dialogue” that had been suspended after being appointed as the chairman of the Economic, Social, and Cultural Affairs Committee in September 2022. A high-ranking official from the ruling party said, “In the process of finalizing labor reform, we have found a counterpart from the labor sector who has a high level of understanding of the labor sector and will not be left-wing as one axis of the Economic, Social, and Cultural Affairs Committee social dialogue.”
After the announcement of his nomination on that day, candidate Kim met with reporters and criticized the Yellow Envelope Act, which the opposition party announced it would push through on the 1st, saying, “The ‘Yellow Envelope Act’ conflicts with the current Constitution and Civil Act, and there is no other legislative case like this in the world.”
Within the government, there were evaluations that “this is a person who has shown the will of the Office of the President to never back down from the opposition party ahead of the passage of the labor law,” but there were also concerns that “it was really necessary to put forward a person who is not innovative and has caused conflict with ‘extreme right’ and abusive remarks.”
Candidate Kim caused controversy by calling the 2018 Sewol Ferry Disaster memorial a “death ritual” and by saying during the 2019 Gangwon-do wildfires that “you liked candlelight, but now there are wildfires all over the country.” He was also removed from the 2022 National Assembly audit of the Economic and Social Affairs Committee after saying, “Former President Moon Jae-in is a Kim Il-sungist.” Some say that his far-right activities, such as founding the Liberty Unification Party with Pastor Jeon Kwang-hoon of Sarang Jeil Church, could also be a burden.
The opposition party and labor unions protested. On this day, members of the National Assembly Environment and Labor Committee belonging to the Democratic Party of Korea urged the withdrawal of the nomination of candidate Kim, saying, “This is not enough for the Economic and Social Affairs Committee, but an action to hand over the entire Ministry of Employment and Labor, an entire ministry responsible for the lives of the people, to the hands of a far-right YouTuber.”
The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions issued a statement saying, “Candidate Kim’s nomination is Yoon Seok-yeol’s anti-labor personnel disaster,” and demanded, “Stop the labor reform attempts led by far-right anti-labor abusive person Kim Moon-soo.”
Reporter Shin Na-ri [email protected]
Reporter Joo Ae-jin [email protected]
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2024-08-01 16:51:17