A strike by the Seoul Metropolitan Ready-Mix Concrete Transport Workers' Union has halted concrete pouring at major semiconductor plant construction sites, including Samsung Electronics' Pyeongtaek campus and SK hynix's Yongin semiconductor cluster. Some companies attempted to ship ready-mix concrete using their own directly operated vehicles, but these efforts were thwarted by union members' interference. Ready-mix concrete must be transported and poured on the day it is produced, so any delay or interruption in supply degrades quality and makes reconstruction unavoidable. That the concrete union, which understands this better than anyone, pushed ahead with the strike can only be seen as an attempt to boost its bargaining power by holding semiconductors hostage. Ready-mix concrete shipments in the Seoul metropolitan area have already fallen to about 10 percent of normal levels, and construction delays at reconstruction and redevelopment sites are becoming a reality.
The concrete union is demanding a 6 percent increase in transport rates and integrated bargaining across the metropolitan area. Earlier, labor and management reached a tentative agreement on a 5.5 percent increase in transport rates, but it was rejected in a union vote. This suggests that the purpose of the strike goes beyond a simple increase in transport rates. The union is seeking to leverage the expanded scope of prime contractors' recognition as employers under the so-called Yellow Envelope Act (the revised Trade Union Act, Articles 2 and 3) to win recognition of the worker status of ready-mix concrete drivers, who are classified as specially employed workers, and of the union's bargaining position. However, this issue is one for which legal judgment has not yet been finalized. While the Seoul Administrative Court recognized the worker status of ready-mix concrete drivers in February this year, the Supreme Court's final ruling remains pending. Even so, a strike that pressures not only the prime construction contractors but also the semiconductor companies that placed the orders is unlikely to gain social consensus.
Protecting the rights of specially employed workers and subcontracted workers is necessary. But bringing semiconductor plant construction sites to a halt on the occasion of the Yellow Envelope Act's enforcement is excessive. This should be an opportunity to establish more refined criteria for judging employer status under the Yellow Envelope Act, in order to minimize confusion at industrial sites surrounding subcontractor unions. There is also a need to discuss institutional safeguards related to collective action by specially employed workers' unions, focusing on key national industries and essential workplaces. In addition, measures should be considered to improve the jiip-centered (vehicle-leasing) transaction structure between vehicle owners and transport drivers — a structural problem in the ready-mix concrete transport industry — and to lower barriers to market entry. The side effects of guaranteeing labor rights leading to a weakening of national competitiveness must be prevented.
