Welcome to BASE21

Jeong Gue-sun, President of FWR

The Ministry of Labor has suggested a new plan, which will transfer the trainee system to a Foreign Workers' System and is similar to the 'Employment-Permit System' (EPS).

After the government party (New Millennium Democracy Party) announced it would delay discussions to change the new migrant workers' system regarding EPS, introduced last March, it is back on the agenda after almost a year.

The new discussion is about having the 2+1 trainee system converted to a 1+2 system. This was decided at a Mediation Committee of State on Dec. 20, 2001, and it will be put into practice soon after revision of the Enforcement Ordinance of Arrival and Departure Act.

The meaning of the conversion from 2+1 to 1+2 is a compromise between each government department, which had different benefits to EPS. KFSB (Korea Federation of Small Business), which has been enjoying big benefits in the process of bringing trainees in Korea, was strongly opposed to EPS, and the Ministry of Law, which controls entry and departure of migrant workers, was also strongly against it because they worried about a reduction in their power over migrant workers. This shows that the Ministry of Labor has very little power within the government.

When 2+1 is changed to 1+2, the business of bringing trainees to Korea, which is currently controlled by KFSB and the Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprise, one year after finishing their

traineeship, migrant workers will be under the control of the Ministry of Labor.
But we cannot find a solution to the large sums of money brokers demand for the entry process or the violation of human rights that happens within the employing companies. The Mediation Committee of State has demanded a new migrant workers system from the Ministry of Labor before this coming June because they also know that 1+ 2 is not enough for improvement of the migrant workers' situation.

Then Ministry of Labor suggests using the Foreign Workers' System Either EPS or the 'Foreign Workers' System' will be abolished soon, which was adopted in 1991 when the three year trainee system was changed to 2+1 (a two year trainee period and a one year work period in 1997) and will change to 1+2 in 2002.

But the problem is time because improvement of the system can only be decided by our activities. Also, an amnesty on and legalization of undocumented migrant workers has to be discussed this time. If there is no plan for undocumented migrant workers, who account for 70 percent of all migrant workers in Korea, or if they think it is possible to solve the problem of undocumented migrant workers by arresting and deporting them, it will be nonsense.

We have to suggest our plan to politicians, who have interests in being elected for local assembly membership and presidency, right now.