Realizing freedom of association and collective representation beyond employment boundaries

AELIM YUNKorea National Open University

‘Standard employment relationship’ as a historical architecture

Vertically integrated firm Single employer, Bilateral relations Control over the performance of work Continuity of contract term Entitlement to rights based on employment status

A historical compromise of distribution of cost and risks between capital, labour and society (Supiot et

al. 2001) in developed countries ‘Precarious work’ as distribution towards workers

of the insecurity and risks

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(1) Making the employment relationship a dot-ted line

Dividing an employment relationship into contracts Discriminatory payment based on the ‘contract’

Employer’s increasing power over the continuance of contract, and consequent control over the work

Increasing parts of working hours are left behind payment

Denying an employment relationship : on-call worker etc.

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(2) Making the employment relationship

indirect / disguised

Dividing the function of a employer over corporate boundaries

Avoiding the employment relationship Control over the work via ‘intermediaries’ Contractualizing/ standardizing the performance of work

Increasing economic dependence on the rule of labour market, rather than on a particular em-ployer

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(3) Making precarious work ‘the norm’

Workers who have been treated as ‘the peripheral’ Workers on unemployment or underemployment

Legislation and government policies as a driving force of increasing precarious work

Workers take risks and insecurity which typically attached to the labour market

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Case studies: Precarious work arrange-ment

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•global value chains (Samsung Elec-tronics)

•‘in-house’ subcontract-ing

•control via train-ing, service guidelines, moni-toring

Subcon-tracted worker

•multi-layered subcontract-ing (Construction)

•‘independent contrac-tor’

•control via in-termedi-aries & piecework

Owner-opera-tor

•public ser-vice sec-tor (School)

•‘worker of School Ac-count’

•control via fixed-term contract, government pol-icy & gendered dis-crimi-na-tion

Fixed-term contract worker

Young worker• publc & commercial service sector etc.• ‘intern’, ‘Trainee’, ‘Part-timer’ etc.• control via unemployment policy, the norm of labour market & discrimination based on age

Case studies: Organizing strategy & Fights

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•improvement of pay system, User-enterprise’s re-sponsibili-ties

•collective ac-tion against and collective bargaining with the user-enterprise

Subcon-tracted worker

•bet-ter reg-ula-tions on multi-layered sub-con-tracting, working hours re-duc-tion, pro-tec-tion against wage ar-rears

•col-lec-tive ac-tion tar-get-ing at pub-lic con-trac-tors & aim-ing at mo-bi-liz-ing workers of the in-dus-try

Owner-opera-tor

•organizing via occupational networks

•exposing discrimination based on gender & types of work

•empowering women & building self-confidence

Fixed-term contract worker

Young worker• organizing based common age, experience &culture • challenging to the ‘norm’ in fractured labour market• collective representation of the generation

Case studies: IR institutional hurdle

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•controversy over the collective bargaining agent & status of employers

•anti-union ac-tivity of the user-enterprise

Subcon-tracted worker

•multi-lay-ered subcontracting sys-tem

•in-formalisa-tion of employment

•en-ti-tlement to col-lec-tive labour rights based on employment sta-tus

Owner-opera-tor

•budget control by the Goverment

•ambiguity in the collective bargaining agent

•prohibi-tion of collective bargaining plural-ism

Fixed-term contract worker

Young worker• denying workers who suffer from constant job insecurity collective labour rights• Government policy encouraging to use precar-ious work

Lesson 1: From separated firms to vertically integrated network of firms

When we see only individual entities separately, it is difficult to identify who should take responsibility for workers’ rights, as a ‘function’ of the employer is performed by several firms.

Many legal systems limited regulatory interventions into a boundary of separate entities, and this allowed the principal enterprise to transfer their risks to others downwards value chains.

Right to collective bargaining and collective actions should be secured to the level of the principal enterprise across the whole value chains.

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Lesson 2: Building IR institutions beyond employment relationships

The power to provide jobs for workers and power to set a standard in the labour market has increasingly significant meaning as to IR institutions.

Economic dependence should be understood as ‘alienated’ subordination rather than quasi-subordination.

All types of dependent workers including those working for multi user-enterprises should be entitled to equal protec-tions which could relieve insecurity and precariousness in the labour market. Fully and equally securing freedom of as-sociation for those would be most effective way.

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Lesson 3: Enlarging IR towards reversing the risks and insecurity

transfer Demands for tackling the risks and insecurity transfer towards

workers & providing workers with universal platform for secu-rity irrespective of employment status

Collective Representation for all workers in the value chain, without being limited to union membership

Building alliances among workers’ organization with a view to countervailing power to recommodification of labour

Putting the role of state on the table; addressing policies which institutionalize unbalanced power distribution between capital and labour

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