노조의 정치적 학습과 전략적 선택 변화: 노동시장 구조개선을 둘러싼 사회적 협의 사례를 중심으로

This study aims to identify the mechanisms of strategic choice change in unions in an actor space where social concertation and parliamentary legislation are interlinked. To this end, a research strategy was designed to examine the labour market flexibility issue in terms of internal union divisions, political learning, and changes in strategic choices at different stages of the debate. In particular, the interaction between the government and the union was analysed in terms of how the union changed its strategic choices. The study focuses on the case of the Federation of Korean Trade Unions(FKTU), which signed the 2015 labour market restructuring agreement and subsequently declared it null and void. The study made the following findings. First, instead of unifying, the union's internal opinion on the government's labour market flexibility policy has split. For example, there were competing course of action alternatives for the social agreement, such as maintaining the agreement, further concertation, and immediate abandonment. Second, the divergence of opinion within unions during interactions with the government facilitated political learning, which led to changes in unions' strategic choices. Third, the asymmetric interaction between the government and the unions constrained the possibility of relatively coordinated reforms. The theoretical significance of this study is that it extends the literature by analysing government-union interactions that influence changes in unions' strategic choices based on political learning theory.