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NHRCK Recommends Improvements to Gender-Discriminative Hiring of Female KTX Attendants
Date : 2006.09.28 00:00:00
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The National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) has advised the chairperson of the Korea Railroad Corporation (KORAIL) to improve its gender-discriminative employment structure. This is based on the conclusion that the exclusive hiring of women for Korea Train Express (KTX) customer service positions without justifiable cause and the creation of unfavorable employment conditions by hiring only females, victims in this case, as KTX attendants constitute gender-based employment discrimination.
In February 2006, an officer of the Korean Railway Workers’ Union known only as Kim (a 38-year-old male) filed a complaint with the Commission, contending that “KORAIL committed gender-based employment discrimination by allowing only females to serve as attendants in charge of customer service and by commissioning the employment of female KTX attendants to an external organization while hiring other train crew directly only to subject those female attendants to unfair discrimination in terms of employment conditions, including wages and bonuses.” In addition, a female officer of the KTX Crew Department of the Korean Railway Workers’ Union known only as Min (female) submitted an additional complaint in March 2006 with respect to the discriminative employment of female KTX attendants.
Against this backdrop, the Commission conducted an investigation of KORAIL and Korvans. According to its findings, female KTX attendants provided the majority of basic services on the express train. However, the Commission determined that gender was not part of the bona fide occupational qualifications (requisite qualifications or requirements to perform certain duties). This decision is applicable even under the assumption that female attendants were in charge of customer service only. Notwithstanding that there existed no rationale justifying the separate hiring of women in that capacity under any circumstances, KORAIL separately employed female attendants dedicated to customer service in the apparent belief that such service was a simple and repetitive duty with a low level of added value. The Commission deemed it to be an act of discrimination based on gender-discriminative prejudice.
Regarding the employment of female KTX attendants, the Commission also found that female employees were subject to unfavorable treatment as compared to ordinary train crew in terms of wages, bonuses, incentives and breaks. In addition, the Commission noted a discriminative employment structure wherein female attendants were hired as contract workers based on the signing of a short-term business consignment agreement and the conclusion of an employment agreement on a yearly basis.
Accordingly, the Commission recommended that this gender-discriminative employment structure be redressed.
