The labor unions of global pharmaceutical companies’ Korean offshoots, which experienced job insecurity due to their headquarters’ unilateral spinoff decisions, are now busy creating a union culture encompassing desk workers and field reps.
Most of them resorted to strikes in the past, but many are trying to shift to all-embracing union activities under the motto of rationality and fairness.
For example, MSD Korea’s labor union has recently focused on communication with the administrative and legislative branches in solidarity with other white-collar unions.
MSD Korea's employees, both office workers and marketing reps, had to experience severe job insecurity for the past two to three years because their headquarters decided to separate its legacy brands that had seen their patents expire, from biosimilars, and establish Organon, a company specializing in women's health,
Actually, the employment uncertainty had been expected since the spinoff of Pfizer's Upjohn division and its merger with Mylan ahead of a similar move by MSD.
The employees of Pfizer Korea had to undergo an organizational overhaul several times without prior consent, as their affiliations changed to the Upjohn division and again to Viatris, a completely different company formed by a merger between Upjohn and Mylan.
As a series of large-scale reorganizations occurred in the pharmaceutical industry, the need for labor unions, which had been limited to marketing jobs in the past, began to grow among desk workers. It was because the office workers had no means of protesting against unfair personnel reshuffle or negotiating work conditions and environment.
An official from MSD Korea's labor union said that the number of office workers joining the labor union has been increasing after the spinoff.
The labor union, realizing that the damage caused by the unilateral reorganization of foreign-invested companies affect both desk workers and field reps, began to change its union culture in earnest.
In solidarity with large white-collar labor unions in other industries, it has set about to improve the working environment in foreign-invested companies and secure employment security.
As part of such efforts, the MSD Korea labor union, along with other local white-collar labor unions, such as Hyundai Motor, LG Electronics, Kumho Tire, and KORAIL Networks, met Moon Sung-hyun, chairperson of the Economic, Social, and Labor Council, a social dialogue organization under the direct control of President Moon Jae-in.
During the meeting, the labor unions stressed the need to improve the working environment for white-collar workers and create a rational and fair corporate culture.
The committee chairman also expressed his support for them.
"In the past, strikes were a large part of the labor movement as it was difficult to improve the working environment without industrial actions," Moon said. "I agree with the need for communication to ensure rationality and fairness sought by labor unions."
The MSD Korea union also plans to meet Lee Nak-yeon -- ex-prime minister and ruling Democratic Party’s former head running for the governing party's presidential primary -- to discuss the working environment of office workers, researchers, and workers in foreign-invested companies.
MSD Korea’s unionists, along with their colleagues at LG Electronics, will hold their meeting with Lee at a café in Gwanju next Tuesday.
Attending the meeting, which will focus on the theme of improving the working environment and securing the right to live for office and research workers at foreign-invested companies, will be unionists from other pharmaceutical companies, such as Viatris Korea and Ipsen Korea. They will likely raise issues with the reorganization prevalent by global pharmaceutical companies and the need to improve the employment environment.