Seoul education office, teachers’ union under controversy over faculty duty service during vacations

The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education and the Seoul chapter of the National Teachers’ and Educational Workers’ Union have signed a collective agreement that includes rules exempting ordinary teachers from "compulsory faculty duty service" during vacations and on holidays. The rule on exemption of faculty duty service during vacations, which is demanded by the teachers’ union, is a provision that the Education Ministry banned by labeling it as unjustified processing of the administration.

The education office said on Tuesday, “We signed a collective agreement that includes 221 provisions in three years and six months after we demanded bargaining in June 2012.” The agreement includes revocation of teachers` obligatory duty service during vacations and school-designated holidays, minimizing of administrative work for class teachers, and specifying of the boundary of the HR advisory committee, among others.

As for "revocation of teachers` obligatory duty service during vacations and school-designated holidays," teachers at schools in South Chungcheong Province are found to be already experiencing conflict over their duty service during vacations.

The South Chungcheong Provincial Office of Education and the Sejong and South Chungcheong chapter of the teachers’ union have signed a collective agreement that includes provisions suggesting "work of daily duty service during vacations and school holidays shall be revoked" in July this year, when the teachers` union was ruled to be an illegal labor union by the court. Based on rules in the collective agreement, the office sent all elementary and secondary schools in the province an official letter entitled "request to submit a report on actual situation of faculty duty service during 2015 winter vacation." On the surface, the letter was meant to gather information on duty service groups who will be deployed during the vacation, but it earned criticism from schools, because it instructed schools to check grouping for the union`s faculty duty service.

Schools take the letter as if the provincial education office effectively pressured schools to not include the union member teachers from groups of faculty teachers for daylong duty service during the vacation. “Teachers are all teachers, and it is nonsense that they try to check situation only with the union member teachers,” said the principal at a school in Dangjin, South Chungcheong Province. “Upon getting the official letter, I sensed pressure to exempt the union member teachers from faculty duty service.” He suspected that the office effectively ordered schools to give special benefits only to member teachers of the union.

The Seoul education office’s signing of the collective agreement only with the teachers` union is also causing controversy. Originally, the office claimed that signing collective agreement after court ruling in a trial is desirable, but as the union pressured the education office through protest rallies, the office is believed to have ended up signing the collective agreement. However, the signing of collective agreement is a cause for another problem, since the agreement itself could prove to be void depending on the result of appellate court trial over a lawsuit seeking revocation of court ruling that defined the teachers` union as an illegal labor union, which is expected to come out on January 21.

firedy@donga.com