Korean Industrial Relations in the Era of Globalisation
Author(s)
Lee, W. D.; Lee, B. H.
Abstract
Globalization has influenced the transformation of Korean industrial relations by manifesting itself in the government’s globalization strategy and neo-liberal restructuring policies. Global market competition and international labor standards have been the key reference criteria used by the Korean government and other concerned parties to reform labor laws. Under the reality of globalization and economic crisis, labor has been increasingly disadvantaged, with workers having experienced not only growing job insecurity, accompanied by high unemployment and deteriorated employment status as demonstrated by the sharp rise of non-standard workforce, but also widening income inequality. The Korean government’s effort to build a tripartite partnership as part of its strategic response to globalization and the economic crisis has been constrained by the process of labor law reform and economic restructuring. At the same time, the pressure of globalization has led to the instability of labor relations at the enterprise level by producing intense labor-management confrontations concerning employment adjustment and corporate restructuring. HRM schemes of Korean companies have to a large extent shifted to the performance-based system as a result of managerial efforts to respond to growing global competition and to benchmark global best practices.
