President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol. (Yoon’s transition committee)
President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol is set to meet soon with the country’s largest group of trading companies, his transition team said Tuesday, in a move largely seen as stepping up efforts to rebuild ties with big businesses and win support for his economic plan for private sector-led growth.
The meeting will follow Yoon’s gathering last week with chiefs of Korea’s six major business groups, such as the Federation of Korean Industries. It highlights Yoon’s push to reverse pro-labor policies set by the current Moon Jae-in government, whose term ends on May 9.
But the outreach could be an uphill battle for Yoon. Most changes the president-elect wants would have to go through the National Assembly, where Moon’s ruling Democratic Party of Korea holds a majority.
The ruling party is against amending the two laws Yoon sees as contentious.
The first law, effective since July 2018, deals with limits on workweek hours while the second one, which took effect in January this year, involves holding senior executives more accountable for safety breaches at workplaces, like construction sites.
Yoon has openly said the law on working hours, which brought down the cap from 68 to 52 hours per week, could not be a panacea for reducing overtime for workers.
“Workers should be able to work 120 hours a week and then take time off to rest,” Yoon once said before the election, though he later added that he was not supporting scrapping the rule altogether.
Yoon is also keen to rewriting the law holding senior management heavily responsible for damages subcontracted workers face from safety breaches at workplaces. The rule is not only vague on grounds for punishment, but could dampen business confidence, according to Yoon
The president-elect said he will address anything hampering business activity, in response to concerns business leaders floated over the safety rule at last week’s gathering.
The Labor Ministry, which was once again made aware of the debate on the rule by Yoon’s transition team, said it would work to remove ambiguities in the law so it is implemented without confusion.
Experts said Yoon should be flexible in negotiating the rule change as a prolonged fight in early days of presidency could derail the momentum to carry out a broader strategy to support Yoon’s economic plan, in which the private sector is responsible for economic growth with reduced regulatory friction.
By Choi Si-young (
siyoungchoi@heraldcorp.com)