Next Year's Minimum Wage Also Without Industry Distinction... Employers' Committee "Strongly Criticizes"

A user committee member raised strong criticism over the decision to apply next year's minimum wage uniformly without distinguishing by industry.

On the 3rd, the user committee issued a statement saying, "We strongly criticize the unlawful behavior of some worker committee members during the decision-making process on the differentiated application of the 2025 minimum wage by business type, as well as the chairman's lukewarm response in overlooking this."

On the afternoon of the 25th, near the National Assembly Station, participants held up related hand placards at a rally urging the improvement of the minimum wage system, hosted by the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business. [Image source=Yonhap News]

On the 2nd, the Minimum Wage Commission held its 7th plenary meeting at the Government Sejong Complex and put to a vote whether to apply the minimum wage differently by industry next year. Previously, the business sector, centered on small business owners, requested differentiated application of the minimum wage citing management difficulties in some vulnerable industries. The meeting was attended by a total of 27 members: 9 worker committee members, 9 user committee members, and 9 public interest committee members.

The vote result was 11 in favor, 15 against, and 1 invalid, thus rejected.

The user committee explained, "At the last plenary meeting, we proposed to the Minimum Wage Commission a plan to apply differentiated minimum wages for chain convenience stores, taxi transportation, Korean food restaurants, foreign food restaurants, and other simple restaurants. This was intended to apply differentiation at least to some industries where minimum wage acceptance was found to be significantly low, as revealed by the official Minimum Wage Commission review materials and last year's research results."

Meanwhile, during the voting process that day, some worker committee members recommended by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) caused controversy by using physical force, such as seizing the chairman's gavel and tearing up ballots to block the vote.

In response, the user committee criticized, "The behavior of the KCTU-recommended worker committee members who ignored democratic procedures in the decision-making process, forcibly seized the gavel, threatened public interest and user committee members, and physically obstructed the voting by confiscating and tearing ballots is an act that can never occur in a democratic assembly."

They added, "The chairman's handling of the meeting, which overlooked such behavior by the KCTU worker committee members, cannot escape criticism. The user committee cannot help but reasonably suspect that the coercive actions of these KCTU members influenced the vote result today, which rejected the differentiated application by industry."

The user committee further stated, "In a situation where the principles of meeting progress and procedures have collapsed, we cannot help but carefully consider whether to participate in future meetings."