Under this arrangement, employers can, on the basis of a written agreement with the trade union, ask workers to work a maximum of 12 extra hours without overtime pay as long as the average work hours over two consecutive weeks is within the legally prescr ibed weekly work hours. On this issue, KCTU continues to demand greater employer responsibility. KCTU, however, believes that such a legislation needs to include specific clauses for the protection for workers. Such a legal guarantee is needed even more so because of the absence of an effective social welfare system which can provide basic welfare for the dismissed workers 'between jobs'. Under the current conditions, a dismissal may mean a permanent exit rather than re-location within the labor market.
Korean society has no in-built mechanisms for social protection and welfare.
This situation was maintained without too great a difficulty due to the continued high growth. The viability of such a system, however, has began to erode with the rapid slow d own of the economy and the relocation of the Korean economy within the world economic structure. The KCTU demands the employers to seek trade union consent because it is necessary for the businesses and their owners and managers to develop a practice of social responsibility and an ability to seek and develop broader social consensus. This would for ce the employers to change their practice of relying on pro-business government or legal system to come to its aid at call of beckon. The refusal by the employers to develop a practice of winning the consent of the union and a social consensus can only b e perceived as stemming from a motivation to erect an offensive instrument that would enable them to gloss over the issue of social accountability and the need to produce rational justification of their actions.