Cities Can Help Lead the Way

This essay is included in the new book from the Parliamentary Network on the World Bank and IMF: The Future of Work for the People we Serve. To sign up for the launch of the book as well as a conference on the future of work and inequality, click here!

Park Won Soon, Mayor of Seoul Metropolitan Government, Korea

Countries around the globe are still suffering from recession since the 2008 global financial crisis. Global capitalism based on competition seemed to have lost its power. Now is the time to realise an ideal world. Under these circumstances, countries around the world are turning their attention to the labour market. They want to secure new growth engine by improving labour conditions. In line with this way of thinking, the Seoul Metropolitan Government has been exerting efforts to become a city where labour gets respect that it deserves.   

“I will be the first mayor that changes your life.”  

This is the first promise I made to ten million Seoul citizens when I became the mayor of Seoul in 2011.   

To change Seoul citizens’ lives, we needed to change the labour environment as work takes up so may hours and forms an essential part of people’s lives.   

However, labour in Korea is still not respected. If you get paid with the minimum wage for a month, it falls short of average monthly expense of a single household. That is, the minimum wage does not guarantee basic livelihoods. Unfortunately, one out of six young workers in Korea receives an hourly wage even lower than the minimum wage.    

Furthermore, one out of three workers in Korea are temporary or non-regular workers. Such workers do the same job as the regular worker, but get paid only half the wage, with a working year that is only one third of regular workers. The Labour of the citizens of Seoul is not respected, either, as 62,000 workers did not get paid on time in 2017 in the city alone. The number of labour law violations has been increasing every year. The situation is worse for young workers. The ratio of non-regular workers among young workers reached 64% in 2015, a 24.5% increase from 2007.   

This is not sustainable. Work should be a route to a happy and satisfying life, not a source of anxiety or pain. Given these challenges, in 2012 Seoul became the first metropolitan government in Korea to create a dedicated division for labour policy. The division made efforts to transition non-regular workers to regular contracts and established an ordinance designed to protect rights and interests of workers. In April 2015, Seoul established the framework on labour policy, the first of its kind among local governments in South Korea. It also introduced the labour director system that allows workers’ participation in management. The very first labour director was appointed in January, 2017, and it has expanded to 16 organisations where Seoul invested with over 100 labour directors. Seoul leads efforts to identify labour issues and reflect them in city policy. The Seoul labour model has since been applied to other local governments in Korea.   

Here are the principles of the Seoul labour model:   

First, Seoul guarantees the livelihoods of workers, not just their survival. In 2016, Seoul became the first metropolitan government to introduce the living wage to improve workers’ quality of life. The living wage is offered to workers and contract workers in Seoul, and we are increasing the numbers. Seoul has been expanding the labour director system to the public and private sectors through the recommendation of legislation to central government and it plans to further expand the living wage through incentives for private companies. Seoul believes that deciding sensible working hours is a right of workers, not that of employers. On average, workers in Korea work 2,014 hours a year, the second highest rate among OECD members. These long working hours negatively affect not only the health of workers but also their quality of life and the competitive edge of companies. Seoul Metropolitan Government has implemented various projects to reduce working hours and I firmly believe that complying with a 40-hour-week law will both improve workers’ quality of life and create more jobs.  

Second, Seoul provides practical measures to support workers. It is not easy to get legal advice as a worker to guide you through the various laws and policies related to labour violation. The Seoul Metropolitan Government provides certified labour lawyers for communities to give consultation on the rights and interests of workers and labour management in small companies with fewer than nine employees and distributed 20,000 books on labour rights to convenience stores around the city. We have also scaled up efforts to protect rights of part-timers, running the Seoul Labour Academy where anyone can receive training for labour-related matters and establishing the Centre for Rights and Interests of Workers and the Welfare Centre for Workers.   

Third, Seoul has been providing support for vulnerable workers. There are 70,000 workers that are not under the protection of labour law in Seoul, working as substitute drivers, messengers, and delivery workers. Substitute drivers are those who drive their customers home in their customers’ cars. As they normally work at night, 33.8% have health problems, while 63.3% suffer from sleep disorder. To provide support for these workers, Seoul came up with various policies. For example, the city opened resting areas around Seoul. These are not only places to rest but provide diverse services, including job, welfare and financial advice, in cooperation with other facilities in the city. Additionally, Seoul designated a labour investigator specifically to protect vulnerable workers in the public sector and recommend improvements to avoid the violation of workers’ rights. For private businesses, it provides a regular consulting service for labour management.  

Fourth, it is improving labour conditions for employees of the Seoul Metropolitan Government. It acts as a role model for public organisations around the country by becoming an innovative working environment in Seoul. It has been transitioning non-regular workers with unlimited working periods to regular workers, a policy that has been applied to 2,442 workers at organisations where the Seoul Metropolitan Government invested. The city has also applied its model to reduce working hours to 22 organisations where the Seoul Metropolitan Government invested. This is intended to reduce late-night work and create more jobs. According to the research of the Korea Labour & Society Institute, it is possible to create around 130,000 new jobs if workers in Seoul complies with the weekly 52 working hour law. It chose this policy as a joint campaign for labour and management for the first half of this year, to expand to organisations where the Seoul Metropolitan Government invested. In addition, Seoul respects work by private outsourcing or contractors, becoming the first local government to make it mandatory to comply with the directory provision-measures to protect contract workers. It will also continue to enhance working conditions of cleaning contractors.    

These examples show that labour reform has been my priority for the past six years as the mayor of Seoul. New attempts are usually met with opposition. This was true for the labour director system and living wage. There have been harsh criticisms against Seoul’s labour administration. However, now we see these policies being applied to local governments around the country. Seoul has been making utmost efforts to promote respect for labour not only in our city but also around the country. To this end, there have been joint efforts between the public sector, private business, and workers.  

Though Seoul has made some progress, it still has a long way to go.  

I sincerely believe that countries around the globe need to make collaborative efforts to protect work and citizens’ lives in the face of low growth, inequality, and Industry 4.0. We will learn from other countries’ best practices on labour policy. We will come up with better policies for workers in Seoul. I ask for your support regarding Seoul’s efforts to enhance the working environment. Let’s take a step toward a better future of work for the people we serve.