Lee Jae-myung, “The Age of Growth by Squeezing the People Is Over. We Will Stop Free Labor and Overtime”

Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, speaks in a meeting of the party’s Supreme Council at the National Assembly on March 20. Bak Min-gyu, Senior Reporter

On March 22, Democratic Party of Korea leader Lee Jae-myung said, “The Democratic Party will stop changes for the worse in labor policies that could force an excessive workload on citizens,” and announced, “We will improve unreasonable wage policies to prevent businesses from forcing people to provide free labor and to work overtime for free. We also need to head toward a 4.5-day work week.”

Lee made the statement at a meeting of the party’s Supreme Council at the National Assembly Wednesday.

The Democratic Party leader claimed that the government’s discord on changes for the worse in the labor policy allowing a 69-hour work week was growing ever more compelling. He mentioned how President Yoon Suk-yeol argued that working sixty or more hours a week was irrational in terms of securing the health of workers the previous day, only after the Office of the President dismissed his opinion as a private one. Lee argued, “It was a self-confession that the government was promoting changes for the worse in the labor policy so hastily that even the president and his office did not see eye to eye.”

Lee Jae-myung said he would revise the wage policy in addition to the 4.5-day work week he recently mentioned again. He said, “An age of growth by squeezing the people is now over.”

The major opposition party leader further said, “The Democratic Party will drastically raise the limit for the deposit insurance policy, which is currently 50 million won, to 100 million won and ease the burden of loan interest.” He pledged to actively seek policies that could protect the total deposit if an emergency situation, such as the Silicon Valley Bank incident, occurred.

In a meeting with the press on Tuesday, Kim Sung-whan, head of the Democratic Party’s policy committee announced that his party would propose a bill raising the cap on deposit insurance and a bill on the 4.5-day work week in the National Assembly.