South Korea Friday called on North Korea to resume talks over a prolonged wage row at a joint industrial park in the North following Pyongyang’s unilateral move to hike wages.
Friday is the renewed deadline by which 124 South Korean companies should pay the March wages to about 53,000 North Korean workers at the Gaeseong Industrial Complex in the border city of the same name.
The two Koreas have been embroiled in the wage dispute as North Korea has unilaterally decided to hike the minimum monthly wage by 5.18 percent to $74 starting in March.
The two Koreas have held talks on the issue through quasi-government committees from each side twice so far, but they failed to produce a breakthrough. The North has threatened to collect arrears charges if the Seoul firms pass the Friday deadline for the wage payment.
The unification ministry called on North Korea to return to the dialogue if it wants to deal with this issue.
“If North Korea hopes to hike wages, it should actively come back to the negotiating table for consultations through the quasi-state committees and stop pressing South Koreans companies into paying wages,” Lim Byeong-cheol, spokesman at Seoul’s unification ministry, told a press briefing.
Lim said that more than 10 South Korean companies have been found to pay the wage earlier this week, apparently due to the North’s pressure.
Seoul has not accepted the North’s unilateral move, saying that Pyongyang violated a 2004 agreement that calls for the two sides to set the wages together. The wage cap has been set at 5 percent per year. Seoul warned that violators would be penalized.
Vice Unification Minister Hwang Boo-gi said Friday that Seoul plans to impose punitive actions on the companies that paid wages to North Korean workers despite the government’s warning.
“The government plans to take the necessary actions against those firms after closely reviewing why they violated the government’s guidance,” Hwang said during a meeting with officials from the local firms who operate factories in the industrial complex.
He also called on the officials to join the government’s efforts to tackle the wage dispute.
The joint factory park opened in the early 2000s and is the last remaining symbol of inter-Korean reconciliation. It has served as a major revenue source for the cash-strapped communist North, while South Korea has utilized cheap but skilled North Korean laborers. (Yonhap)
