Legal Liminality: the gender and labour politics of organising South Korea's irregular workforce

Chun, Jennifer Jihye

doi:10.1080/01436590902742313

Cited by 27 publications

(27 citation statements)

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“…While affirmative action applies to companies with more than 50 employees in the USA and more than 100 employees in Canada, Korean affirmative action is designed to apply only to workplaces and public companies with more than 500 employees; workplaces with less than 500 employees lie in an institutional blind spot regarding monitoring and reducing gender discrimination (Fuller and Vosko ; Chun 2009a,b; Cho et al. 2010).…”

Section: The Reasons For Gender Discrimination In Social Security Promentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender exclusion in social security protection: evidence from Korea

Cho

Lee

Kwon

2013

Asian-Pac Economic Lit

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This study provides an evaluation of the impact of Korea's stratified labour market on the gaps in wages and social security coverage using the raw data from the supplementary surveys conducted by the Korean National Statistics Office. The study confirms the existence of a labour market stratified by employment type/gender/unionised or non‐unionised/firm size. The labour market structure is not only reflected in the distribution of wages but also in the social security coverage. The empirical result suggests that gender and employment type are the key variables determining the likelihood of social security exclusion. With the other conditions controlled, the female worker has a 65 per cent likelihood of exclusion, and the non‐standard worker has a 40.9 per cent likelihood. For female non‐standard workers, the situation is worse. Their likelihood of exclusion from social security soars to 80.1 per cent. The empirical results with respect to other fringe benefits not mandated by law exhibit the same pattern of social security exclusion. The empirical results emphasise the limitations of gender policy intended to rectify gender discrimination or exclusion alone and suggest a matrix policy that takes into consideration the complex labour market structure.

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Section: The Reasons For Gender Discrimination In Social Security Promentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender exclusion in social security protection: evidence from Korea

Cho

Lee

Kwon

2013

Asian-Pac Economic Lit

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“…As mentioned above, the labour market and, relatedly, labour law reform were conditional to the IMF bailout. The Korean labour market segmentation is largely based on gendered logics in which the state has, according to Chun (, 537), channelled women ‘into downgraded forms of irregular employment’.…”

Section: The Role Of Key Institutional Actors In the Labour Marketmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some categories of non‐regular workers are not permitted by law to join the main unions (Shin ). According to a survey conducted by the Korean Ministry of Labour in , ‘only 2.5% of irregular workers are represented by a union in comparison with 15.1% of regular workers’ (cited in Chun , 536). Attempts have been made to organise the expanding category of irregular workers by new labour movement bodies, often covering specific segments of the workforce at the grassroots level (e.g.…”

Section: The Role Of Key Institutional Actors In the Labour Marketmentioning

confidence: 99%

The growth of non‐standard employment in Japan and South Korea: the role of institutional actors and impact on workers and the labour market

Cooke

Jiang

2017

Asia Pac J Human Res

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A key trend in the development of the global economy is the informalisation of employment. A number of studies have emerged that capture the growth and characteristics of non‐standard employment in Japan and South Korea as two major world economies that are experiencing relative decline in growth. However, limited is understood in the role of institutional actors in shaping the labour markets and how these two neighbouring countries may, despite similarities, differ in terms of forms of non‐standard employment and the institutional and cultural reasons that underpin the differences. This review study fills part of the gap by providing a systematic analysis of changes in the labour market in Japan and South Korea, the role of institutional actors in shaping the informal labour market, patterns of non‐standard employment and its impacts on individual workers as well as the development of the labour market. The paper concludes that informalisation has led to the decline of job quality on a relatively large scale in these two countries and that a greater level of state intervention is necessary to maintain workforce well‐being and economic sustainability.

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“…Following this “grand social compromise”, as it is known in Korea, non‐standard employment relations rapidly expanded, as did mass layoffs. Female workers in particular found that in many cases they were the first to be fired and/or (re)hired under temporary contracts, and they continue to be more likely to have a non‐standard employment status (Chun, , pp. 538–541).…”

Section: The Double Transitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Instead of fighting for independent unions and against authoritarian government, labour struggles increasingly targeted the status of the employment relation itself. What Jennifer Chun (, p. 537) describes as the “legal liminality” of non‐standard employment status – “a state of institutional exception in which workers are neither fully protected by nor fully denied the rights of formal employment” (a phrase that is in many ways emblematic of the postdemocratic condition) – has become one of the main objects of labour struggles since the crisis. It is in this context – the decline of authoritarian repression spurred by a decade of grassroots labour activism enabled by the 1987 democratic transition and multi‐scalar pressure for reform, but also the rollout of neoliberal labour market reform – that Korea's new “postdemocratic” mode of labour control slowly began to emerge.…”

Section: The Double Transitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Legal geographies of labour and postdemocracy: Reinforcing non‐standard work in South Korea

Doucette

Kang

2017

Trans Inst British Geog

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This paper engages the literature on the legal geographies of labour and postdemocracy in order to examine the role of law in limiting the labour rights of non‐standard workers. To do so, it analyses the effects of civil suits for obstruction of business against workers and trade union activists in South Korea. First embraced by liberal administrations as an alternative to authoritarian forms of labour control, civil suits for obstruction of business have become a common feature of labour struggles since 2002 and have led to millions of dollars in damage claims and provisional seizure of assets being applied against workers for engaging in collective action. We argue that by treating many ordinary trade union practices as “threats of force” that obstruct business and are thus liable for compensation, the law has been an essential component in the creation of a postdemocratic mode of labour control: one in which many fundamental labour rights are officially recognised, unlike under authoritarian regimes, but undermined in practice by narrowly limiting workers’ ability to pursue lawful collective action.

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Legal Liminality: the gender and labour politics of organising South Korea's irregular workforce

Cited by 27 publications

References 0 publications

Gender exclusion in social security protection: evidence from Korea

Gender exclusion in social security protection: evidence from Korea

The growth of non‐standard employment in Japan and South Korea: the role of institutional actors and impact on workers and the labour market

Legal geographies of labour and postdemocracy: Reinforcing non‐standard work in South Korea

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