"K-Labour Chamber? The Ministry of Employment and Labour is wrong!", 16 July 2026

On the 13th, Kim Young-hoon, Minister of Employment and Labour, proposed establishing a "K-Labour Chamber" at the National Fiscal Strategy Meeting. In the minister's own words, the aim is to create a body to represent the interests of 8.69 million freelance and platform workers who "cannot even form a union." The plan is to first enact a Basic Act on the Rights of Working People, and then use it as a parent law to establish a self-help mutual-aid organisation responsible for protecting livelihoods, welfare and rights.

But the phrase "cannot even form a union" is inaccurate from the outset. Special-employment, platform and freelance workers do not need to form new unions. They can simply join an industrial union that already exists in their sector or industry. (…) The reason they do not join (…) is that, even if they do join, the state has denied their very eligibility for union membership — through administrative guidelines, court rulings, or legislative gaps — or, even where eligibility is recognised, has denied their right to collective bargaining and to strike.

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The K-Labour Chamber (…) has quietly shifted the issue of the three labour rights — a constitutional right and a state obligation that must also be guaranteed to lower-tier workers in the labour market — into the framework of a low-cost, private consultative body and self-help mutual aid.

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If a labour chamber is truly needed, it should come only after the state has recognised these workers' status as employees, broadened the definition of employer, and closed the gaps in social insurance coverage.