KCTU leadership pushes for social bargaining ahead of Oct. 7 delegate assembly

Deputy chief Lee Yang-su urges action before next leadership election, warning key labor policies will be decided by year's end

President Lee Jae Myung speaks with Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) Chairman Yang Kyung-su at a meeting held at Cheong Wa Dae on April 10. [Yonhap]

With an extraordinary delegate assembly set for Oct. 7 to decide whether the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions will pursue social bargaining, the union's leadership has gone public with an urgent appeal: "If we don't intervene now, it will be too late."

The argument is that major labor-market policies — including the introduction of AI and the designation of mega special zones — could be finalized before the year is out, making it unwise to defer the debate until after the next executive election. Attention is growing over whether the KCTU will return to institutionalized tripartite dialogue.

Deputy KCTU Chairman Lee Yang-su posted a message on his SNS account Tuesday acknowledging calls to wait until after the election before fully deliberating on social bargaining, but pushed back. "The reason we are raising social bargaining is to bring labor's issues into the public arena and intervene," he said.

Lee cited the mass production of robots — what he called physical AI — and the broader industrial transition as reasons for urgency, arguing the government intends to finalize policies affecting the future of labor by year's end, including AI adoption, mega special zone designations and the creation of a future fund using surplus tax revenue. "They will not wait for us," he wrote. "The best situation for them is to decide and push things through swiftly, without the KCTU."

He also warned that handing the decision to the next executive could delay any resolution for a prolonged period. With elections underway at the KCTU's central body, regional chapters and a number of industrial unions, a change in leadership would require restarting organizational deliberations from scratch — meaning the earliest a decision on social bargaining could realistically be made would be the second half of next year. "Timing matters in both struggle and negotiation," Lee said.

Lee's post came ahead of the KCTU's 85th extraordinary delegate assembly, to be held Oct. 7 at Kintex in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province. The central item on the agenda is a motion to pursue social bargaining. By publicly making the case for urgency around policy decisions, the leadership appears to be throwing its weight behind passage of the motion.

However, approving the motion to pursue social bargaining would not automatically confirm the KCTU's participation in the Economic, Social and Labor Council. The KCTU has said it will not join the council in its current form, instead demanding a new social bargaining body with a different name, a revised decision-making structure and guaranteed participation for industrial unions. Even if the motion passes at the delegate assembly, further negotiations with the government over restructuring the body would be required.

Internal opposition within the KCTU remains a variable. Concerns persist that social dialogue could end up pressuring labor into concessions or simply rubber-stamping pre-set government policy. While Lee's post is notable as a public statement by a senior leader urging a return to dialogue, it does not reveal how delegates will actually vote. The Oct. 7 vote is expected to serve as the first real indicator of whether the KCTU will return to the council.

Meanwhile, the KCTU has been participating in a separate, single-issue social dialogue on labor exemptions related to the mega special zones, independent of the broader question of rejoining the council. The government, the two major umbrella unions and business representatives held their first working-level meeting Wednesday to discuss how the talks would be structured and what issues would be on the table.

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