Reversing a Cost-and-Risks Transfer Chain for Workers' Rights

In many countries the basis of labour law protections is an employment relationship that has been identified as a ‘subordinate’ relation to a single employer in individual corporations. However, the emerging pattern of precarious work is often done in relation to multiple ‘users’ beyond corporate boundaries. Among triangular employment relationship or dependent self-employment, for example, different type of dependence – frequently referred to ‘economic dependence’ or ‘quasi subordination’- is more dominant.

In case that labour law protections have been extended to those precarious workers, the grounds and the effectiveness of labour protections are still questioned. On one hand, the degree of similarity to employment relationship is not the right grounds for labour protections, as capital seeks to evade that type of relation. Therefore, the strategy for adjusting criteria of employment relationship (i.e. The ILO Employment Relationship Recommendation) is not enough. On the other hand, the need of social protections for precarious workers cannot fully explain why capital should take the burden of labour protections.

This paper explores an alternative basis and method of employment standards enforcement with cases of construction and personal care service industry in Korea. In both cases, trade unions have developed new strategy for organizing precarious workers and for closing the enforcement gap since 2000s. In particular, unions have focused on the liability of ‘user-enterprises’ in industries where other precarious work than employment relationship becomes the norm.

Furthermore, this paper analyzes the nature of dependence of precarious work and suggests that it can be understood as ‘externalized dependence’ which comes from the cost-and-risks transfer from capital to labour and society. In conclusion, this paper shows reversing the cost-and-risks transfer chain is the better approach for expanding labour protections for all kinds of workers regardless of contract types.