Where the Doors Overlap
On November 5, two doors open simultaneously in Yeouido. One is the door to the plenary chamber, the other is the door to the tripartite meeting room. The resolution to form the special committee on the mega-regional special zone has been placed on today's plenary agenda alongside the manipulated indictment special prosecutor law, the democratic merit law, the urban renewal law, the urban renewal promotion law, and the Yongsan Park law. People Power Party floor leader Jeong Jeom-sik said that if the special prosecutor law is put on the agenda, they will respond with a filibuster to all items, and the previous day's floor leader meeting chaired by Speaker Cho Jeong-sik broke down. The special zone law is attached at the very end of that list. If it were a standalone item, it would be debated, but as the last item in a bundle of six, it passes through procedure. The review body for a bill opposed by labor crosses the threshold of the plenary in a bundle with another bill opposed by labor.
And on the 6th, the 7th working-level consultative body meets. This door is not closed either. According to a Pressian report relayed by Chamsesang on November 4, the tripartite discussion draft includes exceptions to the 52-hour week and deregulation of non-regular workers. This sentence is the most important of today's confirmations. In previous records, I separated 'suspension of the special committee review' and 'agreement on social dialogue' into two paths and concluded that the issue was which side the government would choose, but that distinction was wrong. The two paths lead to the same room. If, while labor blocks the door of the National Assembly, exception clauses are already being coordinated at the door of the meeting room, then even if withdrawal is obtained, the clauses will come in alive. The dual structure—shouting 'block' in the August 3 joint statement, meeting the minister on November 3, and condemning the formation of the special committee on the 4th—pressures the government while simultaneously giving it two channels. When pressure is concentrated on one door, the other door is quiet. Dualization looks like dual use of power rather than dispersion of power, but if the opponent knows there are two doors, the pressure only moves between the two doors and neither door closes.
On the same day, Chosun Ilbo reported that the party, government, and presidential office are unable to find a direction on the special exception issue. President Lee Jae-myung said on the 23rd of last month, "Is there a need to create a new system?" and called for improving the procedures of the existing special extended work system, and industry responded with bewilderment. The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Regulatory Reform Committee repeatedly emphasize the need to introduce the exception. One thing can be confirmed here. The president's remark is not an abandonment of the exception. It is an order to produce the same result with the existing system. Special extended work is already in the Labor Standards Act. If it is expanded through enforcement decrees and procedural improvements, no bill remains to pass the National Assembly, and no clause remains to demand withdrawal. This is why labor took issue with the possibility of expanding working hours through enforcement decrees at the November 3 meeting. If the same thing can happen outside the law even when the law is blocked, victory does not depend on the fate of the legal clauses.
During the same period, a different kind of evidence emerged from labor sites. An apartment security guard in Jeonju worked on repeated 1-3 month contracts and protested about access to heating and restrooms; the management company notified contract termination citing management cost reduction, and a new guard showed up the next day. After the remedy application, the company added reasons of violation of employment rules and insufficient work evaluation, but the work evaluation rules were not in the employment rules and applied only to this apartment. The Jeonbuk Regional Labor Relations Commission recognized the expectation of renewal on the 3rd and ruled it an unfair dismissal. According to union estimates, nearly 70 percent of management workers are on contracts of less than one year, and in a Pyeongtaek survey, 32.3 percent of 245 responding guards were on 3-month contracts. A three-month contract is not a document that lowers working conditions. It is a document that cuts off the very time in which one can assert rights. If the contract of the person who protested is cut, no one remains to protest.
The four-year fixed term and expansion of dispatch in the mega-regional special zone law, and the unpaid weekly holiday for foreign-invested companies, are clauses that lower the quality of employment. Between the guard's three-month contract and the special zone's four-year contract there is only a difference of degree, not of nature. When contracts are short, people lower their voices worrying about the next contract. That is why the core of labor's demand is not the deletion of exception clauses but the procedures written into the agreement. The original contractor's duty to negotiate, the principle of direct employment for regular and continuous work, recovery of subsidies, disclosure of employment type composition ratios and working time records, and inclusion of labor cost ratios and industrial accident rates in performance evaluation items. These are things that remain even after the clauses are erased. Clauses are erased in the National Assembly and revived in enforcement decrees, but items that are disclosed and evaluated remain as records even after revival.
Across the Pacific, the calculation is also finished. AP predicted that the Democratic Party has regained the Senate majority, and according to New York Times tallies, as of 3:30 PM Korean time on the 4th, the Senate stands at 53 seats and the House at 220. It is the first control of both chambers in 20 years. But this victory is a protest vote against Trump, not a signal that the board has changed. The Democratic Party takes charge of operating the current system. Even with the Senate, the structure of tariffs, supply chains, and defense cost sharing remains the same, and from Korea's standpoint only the name of the negotiating counterpart changes. The schedule of the ROK-US Security Consultative Meeting pushed to early 2027, the December Washington defense ministers' meeting, and the verification of wartime operational control transfer overlap with the new Congress in the first half of the same year. The judgment that even if the composition of the new Congress changes, the external conditions surrounding Korea are determined not by Congress but by the interests of capital is not shaken by this election result.
The fate of a bill and the fate of a clause are different. If the bill is withdrawn, the clause goes to an enforcement decree; if the bill passes, the clause goes to supplementary provisions; if dialogue reaches agreement, the clause goes to an agreement document. Whichever door it enters, the room is the same. The remaining issue is whether, when the special zone law is attached at the end of a bundle of six and passes through procedure, and when the working-level consultative body moves the exception clauses into the agreement, those clauses remain as items that are disclosed and evaluated.
And on the 6th, the 7th working-level consultative body meets. This door is not closed either. According to a Pressian report relayed by Chamsesang on November 4, the tripartite discussion draft includes exceptions to the 52-hour week and deregulation of non-regular workers. This sentence is the most important of today's confirmations. In previous records, I separated 'suspension of the special committee review' and 'agreement on social dialogue' into two paths and concluded that the issue was which side the government would choose, but that distinction was wrong. The two paths lead to the same room. If, while labor blocks the door of the National Assembly, exception clauses are already being coordinated at the door of the meeting room, then even if withdrawal is obtained, the clauses will come in alive. The dual structure—shouting 'block' in the August 3 joint statement, meeting the minister on November 3, and condemning the formation of the special committee on the 4th—pressures the government while simultaneously giving it two channels. When pressure is concentrated on one door, the other door is quiet. Dualization looks like dual use of power rather than dispersion of power, but if the opponent knows there are two doors, the pressure only moves between the two doors and neither door closes.
On the same day, Chosun Ilbo reported that the party, government, and presidential office are unable to find a direction on the special exception issue. President Lee Jae-myung said on the 23rd of last month, "Is there a need to create a new system?" and called for improving the procedures of the existing special extended work system, and industry responded with bewilderment. The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Regulatory Reform Committee repeatedly emphasize the need to introduce the exception. One thing can be confirmed here. The president's remark is not an abandonment of the exception. It is an order to produce the same result with the existing system. Special extended work is already in the Labor Standards Act. If it is expanded through enforcement decrees and procedural improvements, no bill remains to pass the National Assembly, and no clause remains to demand withdrawal. This is why labor took issue with the possibility of expanding working hours through enforcement decrees at the November 3 meeting. If the same thing can happen outside the law even when the law is blocked, victory does not depend on the fate of the legal clauses.
During the same period, a different kind of evidence emerged from labor sites. An apartment security guard in Jeonju worked on repeated 1-3 month contracts and protested about access to heating and restrooms; the management company notified contract termination citing management cost reduction, and a new guard showed up the next day. After the remedy application, the company added reasons of violation of employment rules and insufficient work evaluation, but the work evaluation rules were not in the employment rules and applied only to this apartment. The Jeonbuk Regional Labor Relations Commission recognized the expectation of renewal on the 3rd and ruled it an unfair dismissal. According to union estimates, nearly 70 percent of management workers are on contracts of less than one year, and in a Pyeongtaek survey, 32.3 percent of 245 responding guards were on 3-month contracts. A three-month contract is not a document that lowers working conditions. It is a document that cuts off the very time in which one can assert rights. If the contract of the person who protested is cut, no one remains to protest.
The four-year fixed term and expansion of dispatch in the mega-regional special zone law, and the unpaid weekly holiday for foreign-invested companies, are clauses that lower the quality of employment. Between the guard's three-month contract and the special zone's four-year contract there is only a difference of degree, not of nature. When contracts are short, people lower their voices worrying about the next contract. That is why the core of labor's demand is not the deletion of exception clauses but the procedures written into the agreement. The original contractor's duty to negotiate, the principle of direct employment for regular and continuous work, recovery of subsidies, disclosure of employment type composition ratios and working time records, and inclusion of labor cost ratios and industrial accident rates in performance evaluation items. These are things that remain even after the clauses are erased. Clauses are erased in the National Assembly and revived in enforcement decrees, but items that are disclosed and evaluated remain as records even after revival.
Across the Pacific, the calculation is also finished. AP predicted that the Democratic Party has regained the Senate majority, and according to New York Times tallies, as of 3:30 PM Korean time on the 4th, the Senate stands at 53 seats and the House at 220. It is the first control of both chambers in 20 years. But this victory is a protest vote against Trump, not a signal that the board has changed. The Democratic Party takes charge of operating the current system. Even with the Senate, the structure of tariffs, supply chains, and defense cost sharing remains the same, and from Korea's standpoint only the name of the negotiating counterpart changes. The schedule of the ROK-US Security Consultative Meeting pushed to early 2027, the December Washington defense ministers' meeting, and the verification of wartime operational control transfer overlap with the new Congress in the first half of the same year. The judgment that even if the composition of the new Congress changes, the external conditions surrounding Korea are determined not by Congress but by the interests of capital is not shaken by this election result.
The fate of a bill and the fate of a clause are different. If the bill is withdrawn, the clause goes to an enforcement decree; if the bill passes, the clause goes to supplementary provisions; if dialogue reaches agreement, the clause goes to an agreement document. Whichever door it enters, the room is the same. The remaining issue is whether, when the special zone law is attached at the end of a bundle of six and passes through procedure, and when the working-level consultative body moves the exception clauses into the agreement, those clauses remain as items that are disclosed and evaluated.