South Korea

Education International/ Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union (KTU or JeonGyoJo)

Complaint to the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association

25 May 2007

Introduction

Education International (EI) and its member organisation, the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union (KTU or JeonGyoJo), hereby provide their observations concerning the lack of social dialogue and attempts by the South Korean authorities to restrain the lawful activities of teacher unions.

EI and KTU believe that social dialogue is a cornerstone of democracy and that successful social dialogue structures and processes have the potential to resolve important economic and social issues, encourage good governance, advance social and industrial peace and stability and boost economic progress. The Republic of Korea, as a member of the tripartite International Labour Organisation, is well aware that workers' organisations (including teacher unions and associations) need to be consulted. However, for the last four years, the government of Korea has failed to consult the KTU.

The Republic of Korea has not yet ratified Convention 87 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention and Convention 98 on the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention.

Through this complaint, EI and the KTU hope that the ILO will encourage the government of the Republic of Korea to engage in sincere dialogue with teacher organisations in the drafting of, during the adoption of, and in the implementation of education reforms.

The present complaint focuses on the following observations:

Absence of dialogue with the teacher organisation in the development and implementation of a system of teacher evaluation;
Prohibition of the right to assemble;
Denial of the right to strike in the Teacher Union Act;
Imposition of disciplinary sanctions against 436 teachers who participated in a union assembly on 22 November 2006;
Imprisonment of two teacher union members who posted images of North Korean posters on the teacher union website in order to promote peace education.

1. Lack of social dialogue with teacher association on education reform

The government of the Republic of Korea has refused to involve teachers and their representative professional organisations in the development and implementation of a teacher evaluation system. The government not only rejected collective bargaining but also opportunities for meaningful dialogue with the teacher union KTU before it introduced an important new education policy, which had been rejected by 230,000 teachers (of a total of 400,000) in 2005. At that time, 230,000 teachers signed a statement opposing the proposed teacher evaluation system.

The teacher opposition was such that the Ministry of Education & Human Resources Development agreed on 20 June 2005 to organise a "Special Council to Raise Educational Quality of Schools" composed of representatives from the Ministry, three teacher organisations (among them the KTU) and parents' associations. In the agreement, the Ministry of Education & Human Resources Development stated that it would not introduce a teacher evaluation system through the choosing of model schools. In spite of this agreement, however, the Ministry of Education & Human Resources Development enforced their teacher evaluation system unilaterally on 4 November 2005.

On 20 October 2006, the Ministry of Education & Human Resources Development convened in the afternoon a public hearing about the enforcement of the teacher evaluation system. But in the morning of the same day, the Ministry of Education & Human Resources Development held a press conference announcing that the Ministry would enforce the teacher evaluation system regardless of the result of the public hearing to be held later in the day.

2. Prohibition of the right to assemble

Outraged by the fact that the Government was trying to impose unilaterally the teacher evaluation system without consulting the teachers and their union, hundreds of members of the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union protested on 20 October 2005. The Ministry of Education & Human Resources Development mobilised police squads to take protesters to police stations. Three teacher representatives were jailed for four months.

In March 2006, the KTU elected new leaders and continued to protest the government's teacher evaluation system. After failing to have meaningful dialogue with the Ministry of Education & Human Resources Development, the KTU decided to use the teacher annual leave provision to call for a protest rally on 22 November 2006.

About 3,000 South Korean teachers took leave and rescheduled their classes in order to join the union assembly outside the Ministry building on 22 November 2006. The government instructed school principals to ignore teachers' applications for a one-day annual leave of absence.

3. Denial of the right to strike in the Teacher Union Act

The Teacher Union Act forbids the right to strike. Therefore, unions must make their demands through other means. However, the Teacher Union Act guarantees the right to organise. In addition, holding assemblies and meetings is permitted under the Labour Union Act. Accordingly, an assembly can be regarded as a justifiable union activity.

The taking of an annual leave of absence, or leaving school earlier than usual for a union assembly, where this does not interfere with the normal operation of a school, cannot be considered a strike action.

Article 16, item 4, of the Government Officials Public Service Regulations specifies that "administrative organisations should permit annual leave as far as there is not severe interference with the performance of the public service when such a request is submitted". Leaving school earlier than usual or taking an annual leave of absence in proportion to working years is a right of teachers. Therefore, principals should have decided whether leave was permitted only on the basis of whether this permission could cause inconvenience to the operation of the schools. The purpose of a teacher's request for an annual leave of absence should not be relevant to this decision.

In this instance, teachers' work was substituted by colleagues in order not to disrupt the learning process of students. Some principals interfered in the agreement between teachers to exchange classes.

The decision that the collective use of the right to annual leave is not justifiable resulted in employers forbidding the use of annual leave to participate in collective meetings and assemblies, thereby restricting the right to assembly and right to freedom of collective expression.

The government issued several requests for a retraction of the annual leave rally, though teachers took all possible measures to avoid any difficulties for school management (for example by changing classes) on the day of the assembly.

Eventually, the teachers' requests for leave were rejected based on instructions given by the Ministry of Education & Human Resources Development.

On 21 November 2007, the Ministry of Education & Human Resources Development and each District Office of Education issued the following instructions to school principals (Appendix 1):

Principals should take responsibility for actively developing "preventive activities," such as persuasion, to counter teachers who are expected to participate in an assembly;
Principals should deny teachers' applications for annual leave or leaving school earlier than usual for the purpose of participating in an assembly (principals who allow it without justifiable reasons will be strictly punished);
Principals should actively propagate the idea that collective actions are unlawful;
Principals should draw up lists of teachers participating in the "annual leave rally" with the intent to impose "post-measures";
Principals should post the Minister of Education and Human Resources Development's letter and send it to teachers.

In the Minister of Education and Human Resources Development's letter, the KTU "annual leave rally" is described as "an unlawful collective behavior against the Government Officials' Public Service Regulations". It also states that "The Minister will strongly punish the participants of this rally, regardless of the extent of their participation." (Appendix 1)

At present, the Teacher Union Act forbids striking, so the union must pursue other means to put forward their demands to the government. On 21 November 2006, the Ministry of Education & Human Resources Development issued a press release (Appendix 2) stating that "the rally was an illegal collective behavior and a relic of authoritarianism, and that it infringed on students' right to learn."

The Minister of Education and Human Resource Development and the Superintendents for the Seoul and Busan Metropolitan Offices of Education also issued an appeal to the KTU, stressing among other things: "It is not educational that teachers take collective action outside the school" (Appendix 1).

4. Imposition of disciplinary sanctions against 436 teachers

The Republic of Korea ratified ILO Convention 135 on Workers' Representatives, which states: "Workers' representatives shall enjoy effective protection against any act prejudicial to them, including dismissal, based on their status or activities as a workers' representative or on union membership or participation in union activities, in so far as they act in conformity with existing laws or collective agreements or other jointly agreed arrangements."

After the rally of 22 November 2006, the Ministry of Education & Human Resources Development announced that it would decide disciplinary punishment based on the frequency of participation in annual leaves of absence or early school leaving for joining union rallies since the year 2000. The Ministry explicitly stated that teachers repeatedly attending annual leave rallies had been targeted for more severe disciplinary measures, such as pay cuts. The Ministry of Education & Human Resources Development sent admonitory letters to the 1856 participants who had participated in three or fewer assemblies from 2000 (including the rally in 2006). The Ministry applied disciplinary sanctions against 436 teachers who had participated in four or more assemblies from 2000.

However, the Government Officials Act clearly states that a request for disciplinary punishment cannot be made two years after the cause for punishment is said to have occurred.

For 6 of the 436 teachers, the Ministry chose to deduct one to three months salary.

198 of the 436 teachers were punished with the withholding of the yearly salary bonus and were disadvantaged in the regular salary increase.

156 of the 436 teachers were punished with disadvantages and changes.

The remaining 76 teachers received admonitory letters.

When the disciplinary committees of the district education offices convened on 25 January 2007, the 436 teachers were restricted in their right to respond to the charges.

The Seoul Nambu District Office of Education prepared a manual dictating that the response time for teachers charged with disciplinary punishment was to be limited to three minutes. The Seoul Nambu District Office of Education also suggested a five-step questioning procedure: the teachers charged would be required to disclose their identity, then answer whether they participated in the rally and whether they were aware that they had violated the law. Then, the chair of the disciplinary punishment committee was requested to say: "If you have anything to say, please briefly say it within three minutes". (Appendix 3)

Article 9 of the Disciplinary Punishment Ordinance for the Public Educational Personnel and Staff states: "A suspected person for disciplinary punishment should have a chance to make sufficient statements (article 9, item 2) and a decision of disciplinary punishment giving no chance of statements becomes invalid (Article 50, Item 3)"

The General Secretary of the Seoul Branch of the KTU witnessed that, "The district office of education forced present teachers to reply within three minutes or to reply briefly, and expelled them from the room if they attempted to say more."

In February 2007, the teachers punished with a pay cut argued for the invalidity of the disciplinary procedures at the Appeals Commission of the Ministry of Education & Human Resources Development. The Appeals Commission plans to examine these requests from May 14 to May 28 2007.

5. Developments and international trade union appeal for social dialogue

In February 2007, without further communication with teachers' organisations, a draft bill to carry out the evaluation of teachers' performance in 2008 was submitted at an extra session of the National Assembly. Although a number of political parties did not support the proposed legislation, the Ministry of Education & Human Resources Development submitted it again, unchanged and without consultation with teacher associations, to a public hearing of the Education Committee of the National Assembly on April 13 2007. In June 2007, the Assembly will likely pass the legislation for the teacher evaluation system submitted by the Ministry of Education & Human Resources Development.

On 21 February 2007, Education International wrote to the President of the Republic of Korea, expressing its concern about the disciplinary actions taken against the 436 teachers who publicly protested against the imposition of the teacher evaluation system (Appendix 4).

In its letter, EI asked the government of the Republic of Korea to involve teacher unions in the preparation and implementation of all education policies, and to lift the penalties imposed on the 436 teachers.

EI and the KTU stressed that as education policies shape the present reality and future opportunities of students, these policies must be implemented only after careful, considered, and comprehensive discussion, with input from the teachers' representatives.

The government has not responded to EI's letter.

During its 110^th session on 23 April 2007, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Committee on Employment, Labour and Social Affairs (ELSAC) discussed a report on recent progress in labour law reform in South Korea. The report submitted by the South Korean authorities to ELSAC as well as the discussion of the report were part of the 2005 follow-up to the OECD Council monitoring mandate on Korean labour law and industrial relations reform.

Prior to its deliberations, ELSAC held joint consultations with both the Business and Industry Advisory Committee (BIAC) and the Trade Union Advisory Committee (TUAC) to the OECD. On behalf of the BIAC, the Korean Employers Federation (KEF) admitted that the tripartite dialogue was not working; it noted that "much remains unsettled on the controversial issues".

The TUAC delegation also challenged the key messages expressed by the Korean authorities. Whilst noting that some of the recent steps taken by the government were positive and pointed in the right direction, TUAC delegates strongly emphasised that due to insufficient progress in reform, there was no reason to suspend the OECD monitoring procedure as was requested by the South Korean government.

The TUAC delegation also pointed out that the most of the progress that had been made, in particular the legalization of the KCTU and the Korean Teachers and Educational Workers Union, must be seen as the result of international pressure.

During the subsequent deliberations regarding the follow-up to the OECD Council monitoring mandate on Korean labour law and industrial relations reform, many ELSAC delegates expressed their concerns regarding the fact that the reform process in South Korea has slowed and that the gap between the provisions of labour law in Korea and internationally recognised labour standards has not been bridged.

6. Violation of teachers' freedom of expression

On 18 January 2007, two members of the KTU - Choi Hwa-seop, a teacher at Myeongil Middle School, and Kim Maeng-gyu, who teaches at Cheongdam Middle School - were arrested for allegedly violating the National Security Law. Their arrests, on charges which carry a potential death penalty, are related to posters and information on North Korean politics that the teachers uploaded to the internet.

The two teachers have been awarded for their contribution to peace education. In October 2000, Choi Hwa-seop was awarded by the Ministry of Education & Human Resources Development for his work in unification education. In 2005, Kim Maeng-gyu produced lessons that were widely reported by the media as superior examples of unification education. These lessons were supported by both the Ministry of Education & Human Resources Development as well as the Ministry of Unification.

The information uploaded to the internet by the two teachers is easily available and can be obtained from other public sources.

On 26 January 2007, the judge rejected the KTU's application for a review of the legality of the confinement. The teachers were sent to Seoul Prison on 29 January 2007.

The two teachers were finally released on bail on 20 April 2007. A trial date is yet to be determined. The KTU is extremely concerned that these teachers will again be imprisoned for their contributions to peace education.

Brussels, 25 May 2007