Civil servants also guarantee their first full-time union...half the civilian population

Economic, Social, and Labor Council Resolve on the Exemption Limit for Public Officials' Working Hours
'Time-off' at half the level of the private sector...Fewer predecessors
Director of Personnel Management can be given an additional 6,000 hours per year
Criticism of 'insufficient' despite discussions over 4 months...Can be implemented immediately

[Anchor]
In the future, full-time government employees' labor unions will be able to receive salaries by recognizing union hours as working hours like private companies.

However, the union protested, saying that the exemption of working hours was half that of the private sector and that a hasty agreement was reached.

Reporter Baek Jong-gyu's report.

[Reporter]
In the future, civil servants will also be able to have paid union predecessors.

A "time-off" will be implemented that allows full-time workers, such as the chairman of the labor union, to engage in union activities during working hours but puts a limit on them.

It has been implemented only by private companies, but it was decided for the first time after discussions at the Economic, Social and Labor Commission when the revised Civil Service Union Act came into force in December last year.

[Kwon Ki-seop / Chairman of the Economic, Social and Labor Committee: The spirit of dialogue, compromise and concession allowed the exemption limit for civil service hours to be reached as an agreement.]

However, the number of full-time employees is less because the number of hours recognized as working is half that of private companies.

Split into 8 sections according to union size,

The section of 300 to 1,299 people with the largest number of bargaining units is designed to allow one or two full-time employees to operate annually.

In addition, if the Minister of Personnel Management recognizes that administrative negotiations are necessary, additional exemption time can be given within 6,000 hours per year.

[Cho Kyung-ho / Chairman of the Public Service Hours Exemption Deliberation Committee: We can use it as part-time from the perspective of the number of employees per year. The number of people is not allowed to exceed twice the number of people that can be used in full time.

However, some civil servants' unions protested that the settlement process was also a "swift", saying that a full time-off without discrimination from the private sector should be guaranteed.

[Lee Chul-soo / Chairman of the National Public Service Trade Union: Time-offs that have become so poor cannot even be settled in the civil service. We can't do that.]

In the process, three union officials were forcibly arrested by the police.

The results of the agreement, which was reached after more than four months of labor, will be implemented as soon as the Minister of Employment and Labor announces it through follow-up procedures.

I'm BAEK JONG KYU of YTN.



Photographer: On Seung-won
Video editing: Eunji Kang
Design: Lee Na-young