Upon her return last weekend from a visit to Europe, President Park Geun-hye used her bully pulpit to point out to the public the urgency of enacting bills on labor reform and economic revitalization.

On Monday, she arranged an unscheduled meeting with the ruling Saenuri Party leadership and strongly urged them to speed up the passage of those bills through the National Assembly.

“What would be the use of labor reforms after the economy has flatlined? We can’t revive the economy after it ceases breathing,” Park was quoted as telling the Saenuri leaders.

She reiterated her call for early passage of the bills Tuesday while presiding over a cabinet meeting. This time, she closed in on opposition lawmakers.

She criticized lawmakers of the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy for “only talking but doing nothing about labor reforms.”

She also warned that, should labor reform bills fall apart, people’s high expectations would turn into despair and indignation and be directed at them in the April general election.

Responding to Park’s criticism, NPAD leader Moon Jae-in said his party would not oppose three of the five bills — those on labor standards, employment insurance and industrial accident compensation insurance — which were based on the landmark agreement between labor, management and the government in September.

Moon said his party could not approve the other two bills — one on fixed-term and part-time workers and the other on temporary agency workers — not only because they were not based on the September tripartite agreement but because they would increase rather than decrease the number of irregular workers.

The ruling party rejected Moon’s suggestion, saying that the five bills should be enacted as a package as they were all closely interrelated.

The ruling party’s argument is not persuasive. It needs to acknowledge that the two bills on irregular workers propose measures that the participants in the tripartite talks failed to agree upon.

If the ruling party can persuade the NPAD to approve the two controversial bills, it is fine. But if it cannot, it will have to wait for the tripartite process to sort out the problems. 

During the extraordinary parliamentary session that starts today, the ruling party needs to focus on the three bills that the NPAD is willing to discuss. This is a more reasonable course of action for it to follow.