Since the revised Trade Union Act, known as the Yellow Envelope Law, took effect in March this year, side effects surrounding performance bonuses and semiconductor plant expansions have surged, intensifying calls for supplementary measures. As the law, tilted in favor of labor unions, has caused numerous harms and repercussions at industrial sites, pressure for revision has erupted across the board just four months after its implementation. President Lee Jae-myung's directive to revise the enforcement ordinance, declaring that "N% performance bonuses cannot be subject to labor disputes" amid a flood of demands from large corporate unions, clearly demonstrates how serious this problem has become.
The Yellow Envelope Law expanded the scope of labor disputes beyond wages and working hours to include business management decisions affecting working conditions, and it restricted claims for damages and provisional seizures even when companies suffer losses from strikes. The law is largely to blame for large corporate unions threatening strikes and making performance bonuses a subject of disputes. As the "N% performance bonus" demand spreads like wildfire across all industries, following Samsung Electronics and extending to Hyundai Motor, HD Hyundai Heavy Industries, and LG Uplus, industrial sites are suffering. If government action is delayed, the performance bonus crisis will inevitably spiral out of control.
Above all, the biggest flaw of the Yellow Envelope Law is that it blocks the reassignment of workers without union consent. Under such conditions, it becomes difficult to attract talent for advanced industries such as semiconductors and artificial intelligence (AI), and the three mega-projects cannot function properly. It was for this reason that when the Samsung Electronics Cho-gieop Union sought to make the Honam-region semiconductor plant an agenda item for negotiations, President Lee demanded that standards be established, saying, "If it goes on like this, there will be no end." As Employment and Labor Minister Kim Young-hoon has stated that he will "proceed quickly," the government must accelerate efforts to prepare follow-up measures.
This is an era in which every single government policy becomes an indicator of national strength. Amid fierce competition for AI supremacy, policies tilted toward labor unions erode industrial competitiveness and dampen corporate investment enthusiasm. On this occasion, considering that Hanwha Ocean has filed the first administrative lawsuit under the Yellow Envelope Law in defiance of a ruling on employer status, the ambiguous standards for employer status must also be refined precisely. The Yellow Envelope Law, which is out of touch with industrial reality, should be revised at the level of the legislation itself, beyond the enforcement ordinance. This is a time that urgently calls for the courage of the ruling party and the government to confess that "what is wrong is wrong" and take action.
