Last week’s ruling by the Supreme Court to recognize basic labor rights for illegal immigrant workers should serve as an occasion to guarantee due reward for work rather than a cause for excessive concern.

The landmark ruling paved the way for foreign workers who are in Korea illegally to set up or join trade unions and negotiate with employers over their working conditions.

In June 2005, a group of 91 foreign workers in Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi Province named the Migrants’ Trade Union, filed a suit after its legal status was denied by the Ministry of Employment and Labor. In February 2006, an administrative court ruled that they were not recognized as workers entitled to labor rights because they were staying here illegally. A year later, however, the Seoul High Court overturned the ruling, saying they should be given rights to establish trade unions and resort to collective bargaining and action.

The Supreme Court upheld the judgment after more than eight years of deliberation. In its verdict, the top court said all people who receive wages in return for offering labor are entitled to set up and join trade unions and foreign workers should not be excluded from the application of this principle because of their illegal status.

The Supreme Court was right to judge that the law on punishing and deporting foreigners landing jobs here without legal qualification is meant to ban employers from hiring them and ought not to be grounds for denying them labor rights.

Still, the highest court made it clear that granting the right to establish a union should not be interpreted as guaranteeing that the members were qualified to work in Korea or as legitimizing their status.

The Supreme Court’s ruling, which is in step with legal standards in major advanced countries, should help guarantee basic rights for illicit immigrant laborers, who remain the most vulnerable in our society.

Some employers here express worry that immigrant workers may be encouraged to make excessive demands and their collective activity may destabilize society. But this concern will probably prove exaggerated.

It can hardly be expected that labor activity by undocumented workers will go so far as to highlight their illegal status. What they will call for may be the minimum rights necessary to receive due reward for their labor.

Of more than 1 million foreign workers here, some 200,000 are believed to be working here illegally. Regardless of their legal status, they have carried out a certain role needed to maintain the Korean economy. Our society needs to be confident that it is now capable of letting last week’s ruling set new standards for treating them fairly.