South Korea Oracle has established its first labor union. Huge foreign IT corporations are seeming to establish labor unions one after the other as South Korea Oracle establishes its labor union followed by South Korea MS (Microsoft). Workers of these foreign IT businesses are very active in establishing labor unions as these businesses are also suffering from employment uncertainty.
According to industries on the 16t, South Korea Oracle’s labor union officially received an approval from Ministry of Employment and Labor to establish a labor union and started receiving membership applications for potential union members. Higher group of this labor union is under Korean Federation of Clerical and Financial Labor Unions, which is directly under Korea Confederation of Trade Union, that has the labor unions from South Korea HP (Hewlett Packard) and South Korea MS that are businesses in a same industry as Oracle as its members.
“Although we have self-esteem about being employed by a leading IT business in the world, our pay is not high compared to other IT businesses due to wage that has been frozen.” said South Korea Oracle’s labor union to employees of Oracle before last weekend through mails and others. “There are distrust and disharmony among employees due to compensation system that is not clear and unclear pay increase that is limited to only certain employees.” This representative also encouraged employees to join the labor union by saying that this labor union is established for guarantee of employment, transparent company#, welfare, and better treatment.”
According to the labor union of Oracle, about 200 employees applied to join the labor union just in the morning of the 16th, which is the first day of receiving applications. This is about 20% of entire employees (1,000) of South Korea Oracle. Labor union expects that about 50% of employees will join the labor union by end of this month and its ultimate goal is to have 90% of employees join.
Establishment of this labor union is taking place for the first time since South Korean branch was established in 1989. Environment of IT industries in South Korea and other countries has changed for the past 30 years. Workers of foreign IT businesses are feeling more insecure about their employments due to frequent turnovers and fast-changing group reorganizations. Employees of South Korea Oracle are also feeling more insecure about their employments due to recent group reorganization, movement of personnel, and resignation. Its labor union chose transparent management as the primary task in order to resolve any insecurities.
“We have established this labor union in order to have South Korea Oracle clearly introduce and debate company’s major decisions such as reorganization and movement of personnel and not to become a obstacle for company’s development.” said Chairman Kim Cheol-soo of South Korea Oracle’s labor union. “We are going to have the labor union participate in a personnel committee so that it can share items that are discussed with members of the labor union and discuss them in a manner that will develop this company.”
There is much attention towards whether or not establishment of labor unions of foreign IT businesses will continue.
South Korea MS established its first labor union in this past July. South Korea MS reorganized its groups and personnel from business and marketing departments with Cloud service at the center in early July. South Korea MS’s labor union argued that its company reshuffled personnel unilaterally.”
“Number of members of the labor union quickly increased as about half of employees (370) excluding management and others joined the labor union.” said Chairman Lee Ok-hyung of South Korea MS’s labor union. “We carried out collective bargaining with management about four times and we are currently discussing variety of items such as stable employment and welfare.”
Staff Reporter Kim, Jiseon | river@etnews.com