Protection for temp workers to improve

A law is being devised by the government to protect irregular temporary workers from being dismissed arbitrarily upon the termination of the term of contract. It means these employees also will be regarded as virtually regular permanent workers.

A protective shield also is under contemplation that would change the status of such temps as insurance canvassers, caddies at golf courses and distributors of supplementary teaching material for schoolchildren to a classification equivalent to that of workers covered by the Labor Standard Law.

A conference for economic policy coordination slated for Oct. 4 will deal with revisions to the Labor Standard Law and other related statutes on the basis of the measures for the protection of temporary workers adopted toward that end.

A senior Finance Ministry official was quoted as saying that a large number of temps at banks have become in fact permanent personnel because of renewals of their employment contracts. Amendments to the laws are desirable in order to prevent abuse of temps for the sake of reducing wages.

The government is planning to intensify administrative guidance to allow workers employed for less than one month to benefit from employment insurance.

All public works projects worth more than 5 billion won will be required to raise fund for severance pay for construction workers. Currently, only those worth 10 billion won or more have been obliged to create the deduction fund to help leaving workers.

Legal means will be provided to order errant building firms to take remedial steps.

In case a construction company gives vocational training it should pay a training allowance of up to 200,000 won per person, government sources said. They said benefits for loan workers also would be increased.

Choi Young-Hae moneychoi@donga.com