Organizing Independent Contractors in South Korea: A Case of Insurance Agents Unionizing

The purpose of this study is to understand limitations and possibilities of organizing independent contractors by focusing on insurance agents in South Korea. Among various types of precarious employment, insurance agents are an exemplar case of independent contractor jobs. Since the 1997 crisis, the private insurance industry has shifted market risk on to workers by employment externalization in the form of independent contracting as well as to consumers by introduction of variable insurance scheme. The labor standard law does not treat insurance agents as workers and most of insurance agents are not affiliated with labor unions. As a result, insurance agents are outside labor protections. Under this context, insurance agents attempted to organize their own union, Korean Insurance Agents' Union (KIAU), in early 2000s, and form a branch of Korean Finance and Service Workers' Union (KFSWU) in 2004. However, the KIAU lost rapidly its membership since the mid-2000s and have failed to revitalize itself until now. This failure might be attributed to some external and internal factors. External factors include the denial of worker status by the courts, the absence of labor market regulation by the government, and crack down on union activities by major insurance companies like Samsung. Internal factors include the absence of strategic approach on the side of the industrial union (KFSWU), individualized job characteristics of insurance agents, heterogeneity of the working conditions between regular workers of insurance companies and insurance agents. In recent attempts to re-organize insurance agents, the role of industrial union is crucial factor. Some programs turning non-regular workers into regular jobs are implemented by the KFSWU through collective agreements; however, the union focused on directly employed non-regular workers, like fixed-term workers. Moreover, the KFSWU's strategic and long-term support was not given to insurance agents, because of its internal constraints and the lack of preparation.