• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.117-143
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• 2006

This paper illuminates the patterns of growth and declines in sizes of union membership in metal, chemical, financial, and auto transport sectors in three distinct periods during the last four decades from 1963 to 2003. This paper also calculates union densities in auto assembly, auto supply, and shipbuilding industries of the metal sector, cement, petroleum refining, and pharmaceutical industries of the chemical sector, private banking industry of the financial sector, and city bus industry of the auto transport sector. Such diversities in both sizes of union membership and union densities among sectors and industries turned out to be associated with attitudes and choices of employers and unions in interaction with sector- and industry-specific economic (growth stage and path), institutional (degrees of government intervention), and social (demographic features of employees and prevailing sizes of firms) environment. Such finding shows that theoretical reasonings on sizes of union membership and union densities across sectors and industries in advanced nations are also relevantly useful to analyze the Korean case.

• Korean Journal of Labor Studies
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.409-441
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• 2018

This study is a case study about the Valero Energy Corporation, the largest American independent refinery company, examining the characteristics of human resource management as a union avoidance strategy. The main research questions here are whether union substitution strategy differs clearly from union suppression strategy in the context of Valero Energy. Since the establishment in 1980, the Valero had maintained non-union tradition. The typical examples of human resource management in the non-unionized American companies are easily found in the Valero, such as strong CEO leadership, manpower policy emphasizing corporate culture and teamwork, direct communication between company and individual employees, no lay-off policy and no outsourcing policy of HRM, salary level around average of industry and best level of fringe benefits in the industry, non-union tradition and well-functioned alternative dispute resolution system and so on. Until now, based on tremendous growth and profitability, the company have applied union substitution method adopted by good companies as concrete method of union avoidance strategy instead of union suppression method that marginal enterprise prefers.

• Korean Journal of Labor Studies
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.29-64
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• 2018

This paper reviews the dynamics of growth and decline of Democratic Labor Union(Minju-nojo) Movement from the perspective of the conflicts among the industrial relations actors on the institutional incorporation of KCTU, a transformation of industrial relations institutes, and labor flexecurity in the change of political opportunity. The negotiations for the institutional incorporation of KCTU concluded in the 1997-98 labor laws. Since 1998, the conflicts and the compromises on the change of 1997-98 labor laws has continued. It was a kind of games for the transformation of the institutions of industrial relations and labor flexcurity. But the 1997-98 labor laws has shown the path-dependency. Since 2008, a cycle of the movement has entered a decline stage. The decline of Democratic Labor Union Movement came from the institutionalization of the movement, the change of political opportunity, and a generational change of 1987 cohorts group which has been the center of the movement.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.14 no.8
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• pp.137-150
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• 2016

Labor-management relations are essential to corporation to secure competitiveness and a continuous development. However it is difficult to establish labor-management relations. This study focuses on the effect of cooperative industrial relations in trust and commitment of organization and labor union through 300people of 12 companies who belong to the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions. As a result of the study, cooperative industrial relations have a positive effect on the trust in organization and labor-management. Furthermore, the trusts of both organization and labor-management relations have a positive effect toward its commitment. This research result is an important factor to change a strategy of the labor union which cannot break out original roles. The cooperative industrial relations are also necessary for organization.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.29-60
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• 2005

This paper investigates how firms adjust wages, employment and hours in response to demand shifts. It focuses on rigidities and asymmetries in such adjustments. Major findings are as follows. First, wage adjustments are fairly small compared with worker adjustments. Second, wage adjustments are asymmetric with respect to sales growth: there is no responsiveness of wage growth when sales are declining, while adjustments are significantly positive when sales are rising. On the contrary, worker adjustments are symmetric with respect to demand shifts. Third, while workers are linearly adjusted to the sales growth, some nonlinearity is observed in the wage adjustment. Fourth, hours are generally nonresponsive to demand shocks. Finally, union firms cut wages rather than workers in the face of negative demand shocks.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.68 no.3
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• pp.51-71
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to clarify macro causes influencing on the diversity of single-mother households poverty among OECD Countries including Korea. This study carried out pooled time series cross-section analysis applying unbalanced panel design on the period from 1981 to 2012. There is marked diversity on single-mother households poverty. GDP per capita does not contributes to reduce poverty, and female employment rate and % population 0-14 exacerbate poverty. Several factors contribute on poverty reduction including social spending, child cash spending, union density, employment protection on regular workers, proportional representation system, cumulative left cabinet, cumulative women seat. In Korea, it needs to overcome the limit of anti-poverty strategy mainly based on economic growth and labor market flexibility. And it needs to enlarge universal welfare institutions, child benefits, work-family reconciliation policy, and to design adjusted labor market institutions including union density and employment protection, to introduce consensus political model including proportional representation system to enhance left power and women's representation.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.195-202
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• 2020

The production of larger of ships is a survival strategy for global shipping companies to pursue the economics of scale. According to this strategy, to respond to this situation, many containers are loading/unloading simultaneously in the hub port. Additionally, the container terminals are promoting the introduction of automation to expand the terminal facilities and increase efficiency/productivity of the container yards. European ports have introduced automation to address rising labor costs and shortages of labor. Recently, the construction of fully automated container terminals is increasing in the United States and China to resolve problems such as the slow growth of the global economy, the emergence of large ships, air pollution, and safety accidents. Domestic ports are at an early stage compared to the world's advanced container terminals, and countermeasures are being prepared to respond to the changing ports. However, research on the recognition difference analysis that examines the opinions of stakeholders is insufficient. As a result of analyzing the recognition among the groups, it was found that container terminal operators reduced labor costs, improved shipping services for shipping companies, prevented safety accidents for port union labor, and increased service for port authority and government agencies. Thus, to closely examine the perception among the groups, one-way ANOVA was performed, and then the implications were deduced as the basic data for the smooth introduction of automation.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.36
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• pp.229-257
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• 1998

In order to evaluate the effects of high unemployment rates on the income distribution and to find out mediative factors to these effect, the relationship between unemployment and income inequality in the industrialized countries and determinants of their relationship are analysized in this paper. Major findings from the analysis are these. First, changing pattern of unemployment rates are not similiar that of income inequality in the industrialized countries. This result suggests that relationships between unemployment and income inequality are dissimiliar within the industrialized countries. Second, results from analysis about relevant factors' effect on the relationship between unemployment and income inequality, the effects of economic factors such as economic growth rates and the scale of economy are not significant. But variables such as union density rates and scale of social welfare expenditure are found to have significant effects on the relationship between unemployment and income inequality. In fact, when the policy factors enters, the negative distributional effects of unemployment are lower by 50%. These results impliy that dissmilarities between the industrialized countries in the 1980s' changing patterns of income inequality are engendered from the union density rates and scale of social welfare expenditure. These findings in this paper suggest such a implication to the Korea; In order to achieve the more deserable society, policy orientations which give the priority to the economy restructuring rather than development of social welfare have to be reexamined and modified.