Democratic lawmaker introduces bill to ban Labor Day holiday substitution

Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Park Hong-bae, a member of the National Assembly's Political Affairs Committee, announced Monday that he had introduced a bill to prohibit employers from substituting Labor Day — May 1 — with another working day.

Labor Day was first established on April 17, 1963, under a law governing the designation of Workers' Day. A comprehensive revision last November changed the holiday's name from "Workers' Day" to "Labor Day," and an amendment to the Public Holidays Act this April designated it a statutory public holiday so that all working people, including civil servants, could observe it together. The change was intended to allow civil servants — who had previously been excluded from the holiday's coverage — to rest and mark the value of labor alongside other workers.

According to Park, however, the Ministry of Employment and Labor issued an administrative interpretation in May through its "Guidelines on the Application of the Labor Standards Act to Labor Day," stating that workplaces with five or more full-time employees may substitute Labor Day with another working day by written agreement with employee representatives. Under such an arrangement, May 1 becomes a regular working day and a separately designated date becomes the paid holiday.

The interpretation reversed the ministry's previous position, under which Labor Day could not be substituted before it was designated a public holiday. The result, Park said, is a paradox: despite the holiday being elevated to public holiday status so that all working people could observe it together, workers could end up working on May 1 and taking their rest on a different day.

The proposed amendment explicitly excludes Labor Day from the holiday-substitution provision under Article 55, Paragraph 2 of the Labor Standards Act, preserving the founding purpose and symbolic significance of the holiday. The bill draws a clear distinction, however, between this prohibition and the existing substitute holiday system under the Public Holidays Act, which applies when Labor Day falls on a Saturday, Sunday or another public holiday.

"It goes against the legislative intent to designate Labor Day as a public holiday so that all working people, including civil servants, can observe it together, and then allow only workers to take their rest on a different day," Park said. "Labor Day is an international commemoration that symbolizes the history of the labor movement and the value of respecting workers. I hope this bill restores the founding purpose of Labor Day."