South Korea to apply minimum wage to all industries next year

On the 2nd, the Korean Minimum Wage Committee decided to apply the minimum wage for next year uniformly without dividing it into categories by industry. There were also allegations of some worker representatives disrupting the vote.
At its seventh plenary meeting held at the Government Complex Sejong on the same day, the Minimum Wage Committee put to a vote on whether to divide next year's minimum wage by industry.
As a result of the vote, the application of the industry classification was rejected with 11 votes in favor, 15 votes against, and 1 invalid vote. The committee is composed of nine representatives each of workers, employers, and public interest commissioners. Worker representative
Assuming that all the public interest representatives voted against the proposal and all the employer representatives voted in favor, it would appear that two of the nine public interest representatives voted in favor, six voted against, and one cast an invalid vote.
The current minimum wage law allows for classification by industry. However, classification was not actually applied until 1988, the first year of the system's introduction.
This year, the business community took into consideration the ability of economically vulnerable industries to pay and decided to raise the minimum wage for Korean food, foreign food, other casual food and beverage businesses, taxi transportation businesses, and convenience store chains.
"The minimum wage system, which has been uniformly and rigidly administered up until now, has been revised in accordance with this decision," Ryu Ki-jeong, executive director of the Korea Employers Federation, said in his opening remarks at the meeting.
"I hope that this will be a historic turning point for flexibility," he said. Meanwhile, the labor community has argued that discriminatory application of the minimum wage by industry is "discrimination" that goes against the original purpose of the minimum wage, and that "low-wage industries" are
The workers strongly opposed the bill, saying it would label workers as "unemployed" and make employment difficult for them.
With the arguments of both labor and management at a standstill, Chairman Lee In-jae declared a vote, but some labor representatives tried to strongly block the vote, causing confusion.
A riot broke out. Some of the workers' representatives from the KCTU reportedly took action such as snatching the chairman's baton and tearing up the ballot papers. The KCTU said that a vote in a situation where the positions of the public interest commissioners were unclear was "unlawful."
After the votes were counted, the employer representative strongly pointed out this issue, and the meeting was temporarily suspended. The Minimum Wage Committee stated, "The chairman expressed strong regret over the act of obstructing the vote, and will refrain from similar acts in the future.
"If such behavior occurs again, we will take necessary measures, such as restricting speech or ordering the employee to leave the venue," the company said in a statement.
The meeting ended without any proposals being presented. The next general meeting, the 8th meeting, is scheduled for the 4th.