South Korean liberal politicians are trying to pass a radical “anti-discrimination” law that the private sector and opposition leaders are raising serious concerns about. Even some liberal presidential hopefuls are withholding full support due to the backlash, revealing just how uncompromisingly leftist some members of the ruling party are.
Rep. Lee Sang-min of the ruling Democratic Party (DP) and Rep. Jang Hye-young of the liberal Justice Party introduced two separate bills that are often described together as the “anti-discrimination act.” After more than 100,000 people signed a presidential Blue House petition calling for their passage on June 14, the bill was automatically sent to the National Assembly’s Legislation and Judiciary Committee for discussion. A total of 24 lawmakers, including Park Joo-min, chairman of the committee, sponsored the bill, which was introduced by Rep. Lee. Even though there is a strong backlash against the bill from industry and conservatives, there is a high possibility that the DP and other liberal parties will unilaterally pass the law, since they hold 60 percent of the seats in the Assembly.
One of the key aims of the law is to prevent discrimination against particular groups of people based on sex, disability, medical history, age, national origin, ethnicity, race, place of origin in the country, marriage status, religion, political stance, sexual identity, among other issues. These are not special criteria when compared to similar laws from other developed countries. However, the law also includes education level and employment status, or whether a person is a full-time employee or a part-time or a contract worker. Legal experts argue that such criteria are not included in major countries’ anti-discrimination laws. This law will affect companies’ human resource issues, including hiring, promotion, and wages.
“If this law goes into effect, companies publicly hiring graduates from colleges can be considered to be discriminatory,” Lee Eun-kyung, a managing partner at local law firm Sanji, told the Korea Economic Daily newspaper. “The spectrum is just too wide and radical when compared to foreign countries’ legislation that was passed.”
If the law is passed, it will be illegal for companies to differentiate wages based on applicants’ backgrounds. For example, undergraduates can file complaints if other applicants or coworkers with masters or doctoral degrees receive better treatment.
One of the other controversial issues is that the bill will require those accused of discrimination to prove their innocence, instead of the victim proving their damage. Additionally, if an applicant who was rejected files a complaint saying he or she was discriminated against, the employer must provide every document related to the hiring and assessment process.
“The number of complaints filed can increase significantly because people can argue that they were discriminated against, even though a certain decision was made based on performance,” said Kim Seung-woo, an honorary professor of economics at Chung-Ang University. “There is a possibility that hardworking and loyal employees can face reverse discrimination.”
There are many comments on news articles criticizing the proposed changes. “Are they trying to make our country a communist and socialist country where intellectuals are persecuted?” one comment read. “They seem to be confused about the difference between discriminate and differentiate.” Another person said, “Let the president and lawmakers get the same salary as an intern. Why are we paying more for beef than we pay for chicken?”
The bill will also have an impact on the financial sector. The law will ban financial institutions from discriminating over employment status for loans, credit cards, insurance or other financial products. Currently, people who have full-time jobs have an advantage over those who are part-time workers or contractors when applying for loans. Although it’s not specified, this advantage will most likely be taken away if the bill is passed.
Even the Moon administration’s Ministry of SMEs and Startups showed concern over the bill. When asked about its opinion regarding the bill, the ministry said that this is an issue that industry representatives and other stakeholders should discuss comprehensively. “We believe that we need to approach this cautiously, since there are concerns that it would lead to weakened management of companies and job market once the anti-discrimination regulation is strengthened in the hiring process.”
According to South Korean media outlets, 35 countries out of 196 countries around the world adopted similar anti-discrimination laws. However, some experts argue that the situation in countries such as the United States and the United Kingdoms is different than in South Korea, as they merged existing discrimination related laws that focused on individual subjects such as sex and race when they adopted their own comprehensive anti-discrimination laws.
In South Korea, there are more than 10 laws that ban discrimination. However, they focus on individual issues such as sex, disability and age. If the newly discussed bill is passed without discussing ways to merge these laws together, there is a chance that the laws will overlap, and people or firms could be punished under more than one law.
In South Korea, the anti-discrimination bill was first introduced in the National Assembly in December 2007 under the Roh Moo-hyun administration. Since then, similar bills were introduced from the 17th National Assembly to the 20th National Assembly but they were dismissed without going through the review process by lawmakers. Many in South Korea’s religious community opposes the bills because of clauses that ban discrimination based on sexual identity.
Rep. Park Yong-jin of the DP, who sponsored the bill and is running to become the party’s presidential candidate in next year’s election, said that “the time has finally come,” during a recent press conference on the bill. “Even if we face hardships, we have to go through the path to transform the Republic of Korea,” he said.
Choo Mi-ae, a former lawmaker and justice minister under the Moon administration, said that the DP should take this bill to be the party’s official stance. Choo, who recently announced that she is running for president, argued that it is not possible improve Korea’s human rights issues without solving the problem of discrimination.
Lee Nak-yon, former prime minister during the Moon administration and lawmaker from the DP, said he agrees with the general concept of the anti-discrimination law, but that he hopes they can find a way to pass it in a way that minimizes the concerns that people have raised so far.
Lee Jun-seok, the new head of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP), said that it is too early to discuss the details of the bill. “A national consensus has not arisen yet, and a significant number of people have concerns over it,” he said. “There is no need to hurry in passing this law.”
