Rival parties agreed Saturday to put a set of bills on North Korean human rights and corporate revitalization to a full-floor vote this week, ending a months-long standoff that had frozen the legislature.

But their extended meeting on Sunday to discuss further on other disputed bills ended with little result.

The floor leaders of the ruling Saenuri Party and The Minjoo Party of Korea met on Sunday afternooon, seeking each other's compromise on the terrorism prevention and labor reform bills, as well as the revision on the nation's electoral map.

It was mostly the labor reform issue that remained controversial up to the end. The Minjoo Party demanded that the Saenuri puts the labor bills aside and move on to the constituency redrawing

"The Saenuri Party insists that there will be no fixing of the constituencies without passing of the key pending (labor) bills," said The Minjoo floor leader Rep. Lee Jong-kul.

His Saenuri counterpart Rep. Won Yoo-chul, on the other hand, reiterated the need to pass the labor bills.

"One of the key tasks for the parliament at this point in time is to stabilize the people's lives, revitalize the economy and to create jobs for the youths," he told reporters after the fruitless meeting.



The leadership of the leading parties had successfully agreed on Saturday to put the North Korean human rights bill and the corporate revitalization bill to a full vote on Friday.

“The plenary session will be held at 2 p.m. on Jan. 29 to vote on the corporate revitalization bill and the North Korean human rights bill,” Reps. Kim Yong-nam and Lee Un-ju, respectively floor spokesperson of the ruling and the main opposition party, said jointly.

The revitalization bill, dubbed the “one-shot bill,” involves offering restructuring support to insolvent companies, allowing them an easier business reshuffling process.

The opposition camp had demanded that conglomerates be excluded from this benefit, citing possible abuse, but recently yielded in a gesture of compromise.

The North Korean human rights bill calls for efforts to raise the international society’s awareness of human rights abuses in the communist state and to ensure that humanitarian aid is not diverted to other uses.

It reflects the concerns that the North Korean regime has been misusing outside aid to support its military.

The bill has been pending at the National Assembly since June 2012, with the ruling party advocating its necessity and the opposition party claiming that it may provoke North Korea.

In exchange for the compromise that the opposition made on the one-shot bill, the ruling party agreed to include a clause on promoting inter-Korean peace, as suggested by Minjoo Party.

Whether or not the parties will pass these two bills is still uncertain but the consensus to put them to a full vote was at least taken as a positive sign in the long-stalled partisan relationship.

But aside from this partial achievement, parties still face hurdles when it comes to the rest of the pending bills.

While President Park Geun-hye advocated a national petition campaign to urge for the passage of the disputed bills, an umbrella labor union walked out of the trilateral talks with the government and management.

Conflicts worsened as the Labor Ministry on Friday announced a set of administrative guidelines that allow companies to lay off underperforming employees and to change employment regulations without employees’ consent.

As for the constituency map, parties had earlier agreed on a plan to allocate 253 seats to regional representatives and 47 to proportional ones, but are still at odds on whether or not to put the bill in the same basket as the economic and labor bills.

By Bae Hyun-jung (tellme@heraldcorp.com)