정부수립 후 노동위원회의 설치와 노동문제

Abstract

This article explores the nature of the labor problem and the contemporary perception of the problem during the years after the Republic of Korea was established. It focuses on the Labor Relations Commission that was set up to revolve conflicts between labor and management, and in particular, on the planning of the Commission laws, the structure of the Commission and its functions. The Constitution, which was formulated in 1948, clearly regulated the rights to work and to organize for the first time in the history of Korea. It was followed by the Labor Laws enacted in 1953, which advocated the rights of workers guaranteed by the Constitution. The Labor Laws passed in 1953, which completed the legal foundation for the workers’ rights and democratic labor movements. Now the government, the labor laws, and policy for the people came to exist as separate bodies, which was different from situations during the colonial period or the years of the American military government. Nevertheless, in reality, workers were still under unfair and restricted conditions. Although the Constitution guaranteed the workers’ right to organize, the right to bargain collectively, and the liberty to take a collective action, it supported these rights ‘within’ the four corners of the law, leaving a possibility to limit the right to organize. Also the Labor Laws permitted the government to excessively intervene in the labor problem and defined the unit of collective agreement as factory, workplace, and other workplaces, which possibly curtailed the activities of labor unions. The Labor Relations Commission was established as the organization for mutual agreement between representatives of workers, management, and public interests, and also as an independent organization. The establishment of the Commission constitutes a unique history in the sense that the government of Republic of Korea, since its establishment, has emphasized the rights of the administrative body. The enactment of the Labor Relations Commission Laws and the start of the Commission symbolize that the first foundation was laid so that a neutral and independent organization, at least in its structure, can be in charge of judgement and mediation, corresponding to the ideology of the Labor Laws. Workers’ rights were guaranteed to some extent as seen in the activities of the Labor Relations Commission, in judging and resolving individual cases. On the other hand, the Commission dealt with disputes by mediation and arbitration, only after the administrative body intervened. In addition, the settlements of the Commission had a limited influence on the labor policy. Given these limitations, it is hard to gauge to what extent the Commission functioned in protecting workers as a whole and in supporting the labor movements. In addition, as concentrating on the cooperation between labor and management, the operation of the Commission might rather damage the identity of the labor class. This was the gap unclosed between what the four major Labor Laws pursued and what the reality of labor problem was. Furthermore, labor disputes came to be restricted for security reasons under the domination of anti-communist ideology in later years; and the labor was compelled to unilaterally cooperate with the management in the subordinate relationship, which gave a dominant position to the management. These conditions made the Labor Laws almost nominal. These changes extensively shrank the function of the Labor Relations Commission.