ILO 핵심협약 비준 관련 논의 경과와 과제

This article tries to trace the background and debates of the ‘Committee for the Improvement of Laws, Measures, and Practices for Labor Relations Development’(‘Committee’) established in the ‘Economic, Social, and Labor Council’. The Committee’s main purpose is to identify the obstacles to the ratification of the Fundamental Conventions regarding the freedom of association in the International Labour Organization(‘ILO’), and to make recommendations for the amendment of labor legislation to the Korean Government as well as to the Parliament. Despite persistent efforts towards reaching the agreement between the Committee's tripartite members, the Committee failed to reach the conclusions and make recommendations unanimously. Instead, the public members of the Committee have made several suggestions for making the draft bills in the field of the freedom of association. This article tries to clarify the assignment of the Committee, the main reasons why the Committee reached the impasse for agreement, the significance and limitations of the public members’ recommendations, and its limits of the discussions in the Committee. In doing so, it is argued that the resulting consequences of the discussions in the Committee have major potential flaws, including but not limited to the lack of confidence, political will and commitment between the social partners, unstructured and unaccountable attitudes of the some members in the Committee, and misunderstanding of terms of reference by the parties in the Committee. To avoid similar mistakes, this article suggests the current tripartite dialogue system require urgent reforms in terms of the social dialogue structure, selection of members, firm commitment to the agenda by the social partners as well as government, extending public awareness to the fundamental labor rights and international labour standards, and strengthening the capabilities of social partners.