Input 2021.02.03 15:24
Even though the chairman, vice-chairman, and CEO were also on the move,’white medicine nullity’
Civil lawsuits related to the personnel evaluation system will be conducted soon.
On the 3rd, an official from SK Hynix’s technical office worker union said, “(PS payment related) I cannot disclose it now, but there is something I can legally do,” he said. “We are taking related procedures such as talking with a lawyer.”
SK Hynix is a multiple union system. It consists of a full-time (production worker) union at the Icheon and Cheongju factories under the Korean Federation of Trade Unions and a technical office worker union under the Democratic Trade Union established in September 2018. The technical office workers said that although they tried to solidarity with the full-time union, they did not express their intention to join. However, in response to this, the full-time union said, “There is no fact (such as solidarity).” The full-time union is planning to coordinate opinions on PS with management, including SK Hynix Vice Chairman Park Jung-ho, on the 4th.
It is an observation from inside and outside the industry that the chances of winning even if the SK Hynix technical office workers’ unions take legal action against the company are slim. Although this is another case, in January of last year, two retirees from SK Hynix filed a lawsuit against the management to “pay the unpaid portion of the recalculated severance pay, including incentives,” but lost in the court of first instance. At the time, it was reported that SK Hynix emphasized the fact that the remuneration regulations did not contain any incentives. Currently, it is known that the technical office worker union is also aware that the payment of incentives is not a matter of consultation between labor and management.
As the size of the technical office worker union is smaller than that of the full-time union, the actual effect is also questionable. As of the third quarter of last year, SK Hynix’s total number of employees was 28,894. In the case of the Icheon plant, 7925 out of 8047 people who are eligible to join the union, and 5212 out of 5232 in the Cheongju plant have joined the union. It means that about 9.9 out of 10 people who are eligible for membership have joined the union. On the other hand, the number of technical office workers is estimated to be about 15,000, and the actual number of subscribers is reported to be around 1,000. It is known that the number of subscribers is on the rise due to complaints about PS payments recently. However, the labor union for technical office workers has not disclosed the specific scale.
The fact that SK Hynix’s technical office workers’ union is undergoing legal response procedures while recognizing that the situation is unfavorable can be interpreted as a measure to emphasize that there is a lot of dissatisfaction with the payment of bonuses. SK Group Chairman Choi Tae-won announced on the 1st that he would return the annual salary he received from SK Hynix last year, and Vice Chairman Park Jung-ho also said to the union, “I will make a conversation soon,” and are trying to appease employees”performance pay complaints’. SK Hynix CEO Lee Seok-hee also explained the controversy over performance pay through the company’s network the day before, but it seems that only the goal of the conflict is deepening.
Meanwhile, the SK hynix technology office workers union is preparing a legal response to the personnel evaluation system’self-design’ introduced by the company for technical office workers. The union’s claim that the annual salary of a technical office worker consists of standard salary and achievement salary, and that applying self-design can cause executives to significantly adjust the application rate of achievement salary, which could result in an unreasonable reduction in annual salary. Also, the union claims that the management implemented such a personnel evaluation system without workers’ consent. Currently, the Ministry of Employment and Labor has communicated this fact and plans to proceed with a civil lawsuit separately.