Compromise Time in S. Korea

South Korea’s economy remains enviably healthy by the standards of most industrialized countries, but Korean officials and business leaders see a less happy picture. Korea’s exporters have increasingly been losing markets to lower-cost Asian producers, and this has contributed to slower growth and a rising trade deficit. Partial blame falls on a paternalistic labor law that President Kim Young Sam and his supporters see as a drag on South Korea’s economic competitiveness. Last month Kim’s governing coalition, in a secret 6 a.m. National Assembly meeting from which opposition parties were excluded, voted major changes in the law. This was a shameful reversion to authoritarian tactics by Korea’s first-ever democratic government, and it set off a wave of strikes that has so far cost the economy more than $3 billion.

Protests over the government’s clumsy action have in fact been international in scope, with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, to which South Korea was admitted just last month, making clear its displeasure. In the face of all this, Kim has been forced into a stunning retreat, offering both to open the new law to amendments when the National Assembly meets next month and, maybe, even to immediately recognize a heretofore outlawed confederation of trade unions. But union leaders and the political opposition insist that the law must be repealed before they will enter any discussions.

Compromise has never come easy in Korean politics, but here is a case where its urgency is apparent. For decades Korean workers labored long hours at poor wages to help create a national economic miracle. Among their rewards were subsidies for housing, family education and the like, as well as a guarantee of virtual lifetime employment. Intensifying global economic competition clearly necessitates changes in the labor law to give employers greater flexibility. But domestic tranquillity and a need for social justice also require that workers facing possible layoffs be given every possible economic cushion.

Kim, who is barred from seeking a second term in December’s election, has seen his popularity plummet. At the same time support for the strikers--perhaps several hundred thousand out of a labor force of 21 million--has been less than enthusiastic. It’s time for South Korea to get a revised labor law. But this time, one produced by democratic give and take in a proper parliamentary setting, not by dictate.