Korean Industrial Relations in the Era of Globalisation

Abstract

Globalisation has influenced the transformation of Korean industrial relations by manifesting itself in the government's globalisation strategy and neo-liberal restructuring policies. Global market competition and international labour standards have been the key reference criteria used by the Korean government and other concerned parties to reform labour laws. Under the reality of globalisation and economic crisis, labour 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 globalisation and the economic crisis has been constrained by the process of labour law reform and economic restructuring. At the same time, the pressure of globalisation has led to the instability of labour relations at the enterprise level by producing intense labour-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. © 2003, Sage Publications. All rights reserved.