Lopsided inclusion: The impact of multi‐employer bargaining and class‐based unionism on non‐regular employment in South Korea

Abstract

AbstractThis study examines the impact of multi‐employer bargaining on non‐regular workers across different unions and types of non‐regular employment. Using national representative survey data from South Korea, I find that multi‐employer bargaining increases the likelihood that a workplace union would address a pay increase for non‐regular workers when the union was affiliated with a confederation espousing class‐based as opposed to business‐unionism. However, such a relationship was weaker for temporary agency workers and subcontractors than for direct‐hire fixed‐term workers. This mechanism is further illustrated through a second round of data collection and analysis, namely in‐depth interviews. I identify two factors that characterize the class‐based confederation: (1) centralized pressure from the union and (2) activists and their identity work. Altogether, these results further an understanding of how the identities of national union confederations can influence local representatives’ approach to representing non‐regular workers and how those influences are manifested through workplace‐level collective bargaining.