Maybe the first button was stitched incorrectly. When he was a candidate, President Yoon Seok-yeol once said, "Work 120 hours a week and rest to your heart's content." At the time, I thought it was a joke, but now that I'm here, I think maybe it's not. As if clapping hands to the president's presidency, the Ministry of Employment and Labor issued an amendment, but the response was cold. Only after a flurry of criticism did the government decide to take a step back and reconsider the reform of working hours.


The "69-hour week" that Generation MZ would like, and the opposition is to blame for fake news?

Nevertheless, government policymakers still seem to think that "fake news" has skewed public opinion. The proposed amendment does not differ in the total amount of hours worked from the existing 52-hour week, but rather flexibility, but only highlights working hours in certain weeks. Presidential Chief of Staff Kim Ki-yong said, "The extreme, unthinkable frame of 69 hours has been put on," echoing the Ministry of Employment and Labor's explanation that misunderstandings stemming from extreme assumptions have grown. Four days after the president ordered the supplement, saying "more than 60 hours a week is unreasonable," he again said that "more than 60 hours a week could come out." It seems that everyone who works is still torn between working hours on which the fate of everyone is at stake.


Scrambling over working hours, something really important is missing

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Are people really venting their anger by focusing on the fact that they are working more hours in a particular week? The Ministry of Employment and Labor said that the core of this reorganization is "expanding workers' options," and posted a calendar on social media that assumes a maximum of 69 hours of work per week. It is said that the situation assumes the launch of a new product. In the 1st and 2nd weeks, including Saturdays, we work 9 am ~ 22 pm / 9 am ~ 20:30 pm / 3 weeks and 4 weeks 9 ~ 18 pm. On the other hand, under the current 52-hour week, I worked 9 a.m. ~ 20:30 all month long, and I always wrote that I would eat dinner at work. Do you agree with this schedule? The reaction of the users was:


We need to get more people so that the work can be done in 40 hours a week. Why are you trying to get an extension to get the job done, but

there is no work in week 3~4?

If Deputy Kim, who is in charge of work A, takes a long vacation, is the ancestor in charge of that work?

Who doesn't know? It's a problem because I don't keep it.

Work 69 hours from the Ministry of Employment and Labor.

What about the six-day workweek that went against the times?
Why does leaving work on time become "don't ask, don't leave work"?

It's the perfect shift for overwork.

Rigid working hours? More urgent than flexibility is 'reducing working hours'

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So, is working time management really rigid in our country? The current Labor Standards Act requires all workers to work no more than 40 hours a week, but to work an additional 12 hours if necessary, such as an explosion of work. In addition, we have already established a system that allows flexible use of working hours, such as flexible working hours, discretionary working hours, deemed working hours, and optional working hours. The problem is that these systems do not guarantee workers' right to proper rest and are often used as tools of overwork to suit corporate tastes. According to Direct Labor 119, overtime work for workers in small businesses with fewer than 80 employees, or about 100 percent of all workers, is not done by "consent of the parties" under the Labor Standards Act, but by unilateral instructions of the employer. The law is not well followed, but there is talk of autonomy and choice.


The reality that I can't even use all my annual leave, why can't I change it

We're already overworked enough, who are among the five fingers of working a lot around the world. On the other hand, if the government really wanted to tinker with the system to live up to the name "labour reform," it should have used a different imagination. Was it difficult to fix the reality of not being able to take annual leave, for example? A survey by 119 found that 10 out of 8 workers are unable to complete their 15 days of statutory annual leave. Only 19.4% of workers used up their annual leave. On the other hand, 6.41% of workers took less than six days of annual leave. This is why it is desperate, such as encouraging employers to use annual leave, which is limited to catering, as well as a system that allows actual workers to take annual leave unconditionally. Couldn't the total amount of working hours itself be reduced by 5~4 hours per year compared to Europe? Instead of leaving the balance between work and family to individual efforts, it was difficult to find any signs of thinking about revitalizing the child-rearing work reduction system, which is virtually only in the legal code, in general companies.


'Is 60 hours a week okay?'

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In fact, there was one question that never left my head during my working hours interview. With the government's signal that it is possible to work long hours like this, who will be the first to be overworked? The more insecure the form of employment, the younger the age, the lower the rank, the smaller the business, the first thing I thought would be called to the front of long hours. I wonder how many jobs can be driven in weeks 1 and 2 and leave work on time in weeks 3 and 4, as explained by the government, and whether policymakers have seriously considered. First of all, wouldn't it be harder for low-wage workers who have to work more hours to make ends meet their employers' demands for extra work? Even if it were reduced from 69 to 60 hours, would there be any problems with the maximum workweek that would be higher than it is now? Leaving these concerns aside, I wonder if the reform proposal has been packaged as a level of reform that the user owner can agree on. It was the government that didn't listen to the concerns on the ground that changed the number 52 to the incomprehensible number of 64 or 69 in the first place. It is too much to "frame" the anger of workers who are already enduring a heavy and intense daily life at work. Unless this perception of reality changes, it's hard to envision a tomorrow that will be better than today.