공공서비스 노조주의 관점에서 살펴본 철도노조의 민영화 저지투쟁

The objective of this essay is to assess the possibility of public service trade unionism as an alternative to the business unionism, reflecting on the basis of the anti-privatization struggle of the Korean Railway Workers’ Union in 2013. Public service unionism aims to achieve both the union’s economic goals and public goals such as public service quality improvement. To enable this, it establishes social coalition and utilizes various participatory means including management participation, industry-based bargaining, and social dialogue. During the 2013 strike that lasted 23 days, Korean Railway Workers’ Union organized an active participation of its members and established a wide range of social coalition such as the Railway Round-table Conference for 1,200 plus civil society groups. In particular, Railway Union formed a ‘common-cause coalition’ under which unions and civic groups shared a common value and were able to dominate the social discourse. However, the fact that the union played only passive role in the management participation, that it still adheres to the enterprise-level collective bargaining, and that it exerts limited political pressure on the basis of occupational social dialogue also presents limitations for the public service unionism. In conclusion, public service unionism can be a substitute to the economism of the public sector. However this will require that the public service unionism not only achieve member participation and social coalition, but also take aggressive part in management participation and industry-level collective bargaining as well as adopting a new and more active approach to the social dialogue.