A delivery worker loads food onto a motorcycle. / Yonhap

With the International Labour Organization (ILO) establishing its first international labor standard for platform workers, South Korea now faces the task of overhauling its own labor law framework. As the government's proposed "Basic Act for Working People" and a presumed-employee system emerge as key policy tools, opinions differ among labor groups and experts over whether to expand the scope of the existing Labor Standards Act or build a protection system centered on a separate basic law.

According to labor circles on the 18th, ILO Convention No. 193, adopted in June, broadly extends protection to people working through platforms regardless of their employment status, setting standards for industrial safety, social security, and algorithmic management. However, the convention does not require all platform workers to be classified as employees, and an accompanying recommendation meant to supplement the convention wasn't adopted due to insufficient deliberation time, leaving much of the specific method of protection to each country's own legislation and institutional design.

At a discussion forum titled "The Significance and Future Tasks of the ILO Platform Labor Convention," hosted by the Ministry of Employment and Labor that day, discussion centered on the direction of legal and institutional reform for implementing the convention domestically.

The biggest point of contention is which legal framework should house these protections. Park Gwi-cheon, a professor at Ewha Womans University's School of Law, said it is difficult to uniformly regulate diverse, new forms of labor like platform work using existing statutes alone, adding that for now, a Basic Act for Working People could be a more realistic alternative. She stressed, however, that a basic law alone cannot provide a sufficient level of protection and regulation, and that individual statutes and systems must be continuously improved building on that foundation.

On the ground, however, some argue that the scope of protection under the Labor Standards Act should be expanded first. Shin Eon-jik, head of the Pulbbang research institute at the Labor Mutual Aid Federation, said opinions are split between those who believe a "presumed-employee" clause should be written into Article 2 of the Labor Standards Act, with a Basic Act for Working People pursued in parallel to cover laborers who still fall outside that scope, and those who worry that establishing a separate basic law could create a "third category" that ends up narrowing the level of protection.

The presumed-employee system is designed to judge employee status based on the actual working relationship rather than the label given in a contract. Since the ILO convention similarly reflects a "primacy of facts" principle — prioritizing actual circumstances such as labor provision and payment when classifying employment status — this is expected to influence the government's ongoing efforts around cracking down on so-called "fake 3.3 contracts" and discussions of a presumed-employee system.

Still, some point out that a basic law alone cannot adequately spell out rights, obligations, and enforcement mechanisms. Park Eun-jung, a professor at Korea National Open University, stressed that as a basic law setting out policy direction, the Basic Act for Working People lacks concrete rights-and-obligations relationships and enforcement mechanisms, adding that specific content needs to be developed further, starting with enacting the basic law.

The scope of discussion also extends to labor management using AI and algorithms. The convention requires that when platforms use algorithms to assign work or evaluate workers, they must disclose that fact and its effects, and provide for human involvement, explanation, and review procedures for decisions carrying significant adverse consequences. Since Korea's existing AI and personal data laws focus on protecting individual rights, they are seen as lacking collective mechanisms for providing algorithmic information to and consulting with worker representatives.

Choi Kyung-jin, a professor at Gachon University, noted that the genuine need for new legislation in implementing the convention lies in how to institutionalize channels for collective information disclosure and consultation regarding algorithmic management.

How far to extend the scope of responsible parties is another issue domestic law must resolve. In structures where a platform assigns work and sets rates while a separate company handles the actual contract and payment, the traditional single-employer concept alone makes it difficult to determine where responsibility lies. Park Hyun-ho, head of the Gyeonggi Center for Non-regular Workers, pointed out that alongside expanding the scope of who counts as an employee, the scope of who counts as an employer or responsible party also needs to be reconfigured to match the reality of today's industrial structures.

Significant differences between labor and management are also expected during the legislative process. In the final vote on the convention, South Korea's government and worker representatives voted in favor, while the employer representative voted against. Since the convention leaves much of the detailed regulation to domestic implementation, disagreement between labor and management is likely to continue through the specific legislative process ahead.

Opinions also differ on the order in which ratification and domestic legislation should proceed. Director Shin said the debate over "ratify first, legislate later" versus "legislate first, ratify later" is unproductive, adding that the ratification consent bill and related domestic legislative amendments need to be submitted together and processed as a package.

                                                                                                            Kim Nam-hyung