Corporate Unionism and Labor Market Flexibility in South Korea

In: Journal of east Asian studies, Band 6, Heft 2, S. 205-231

Abstract

There is significant variance in the strategies
of labor market flexibility under the same
pressure of globalization. This article attempts
to explain that variance by examining closely the
Korean case, with particular attention to the
response of labor, one of the most intractable
actors in the reform process. After theorizing the
nature of social welfare as a quasi-collective
good and hypothesizing labor's responses based on
Olson's theory of collective action, the study
seeks to explain Korea's low commitment to
flexicurity and the resultant dualism in the labor
market. The core argument here is that the
collective action problem among atomized corporate
unions has led to high employment protection for
regular workers in big business at the expense of
marginal workers without appropriate social
protection.