제조업 현장에서 바라본 생산적 노사관계의 확립방안 － 금속 산별교섭의 실태와 발전방향을 중심으로 －

Abstract

The sizes of enterprise-based unions and unions beyond enterprise-level have become similar in terms of the number of union members, and it is expected that an era of unions and bargaining beyond enterprise boundaries will emerge as major companies have moved towards industrial unions. For example, four Korean auto manufacturers, including Hyundai Motors, made movement towards the industrial unions in June 2006. The metal industry, which represent the national industrial system in Korea like in other advanced countries, experienced the transition from enterprise-level to industry-level bargaining structure in some sub-sectors including 40,000 union members since 2001. After large companies such as Hyundai Motors transformed their union structure in 2006, metal industrial union became huge organization having approximately 140,000 members. Unfortunately, industry-level collective bargaining in Korean metal industry was unstable during several years. Collective bargaining were conducted in three levels, that means, national, regional and company level respectively. Even worse, twice or more strikes occurred in a year at some establishments accompanying each level bargaining. Therefore, management side has been very reluctant to the transition from enterprise-level to industry-level bargaining. Some directors and managers from near one hundred companies formed metal employers' association in 2006 in response to the request of metal union, but most large companies haven't joined this. In case of 2007 industrial bargaining in metal sector, there were little advance in bargaining structure and agenda. Only small parts of union members were covered by national level industrial bargaining and most large companies refused joining this bargaining table. Large companies offered lots of increase in their employees' compensation while small and medium companies couldn't. As a result, wage gap between large companies and SMEs widened in spite of the aim of the metal industrial union. Union and management in metal industry must endeavor to take advantage of industrial-level bargaining instead of enterprise-level bargaining through coordination and harmonization of their targets and behaviors. While pursuing that purpose, labor and management must keep in mind that industrial relations move towards reducing bargaining cost and overcoming bi-polarization.