2004, Vol.31, No.1

Korean Social Science Journal 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.06

pISSN : 1225-0368 / eISSN : 2196-4424
https://journal.kci.go.kr/kssj

This paper addresses a socio-cultural contradiction, one that is of monumental proportion, being global in scale and allegedly threatening the survival of the natural and social worlds. It emanates from two cultural imperatives - consumerism and environmentalism - and their consequent behaviours - consumption and environmental behaviour. Consumerism is a cultural imperative that demands we appropriate as many goods and services as possible and that we should do this essentially for fun and enjoyment. In contradistinction, environmentalism is the cultural imperative that demands we act in an environmentally sustainable way and, most particularly, do this by cutting back on consumption and against a backdrop of a impending

For decades, Korea’s brand of state corporatism did not allow “free collective bargaining,” but it did permit striking workers to be paid. We briefly reviewed the evolution of post-1953 industrial relations in Korea, which discloses these facts, and in 1987 and 1997 Korea’s industrial relations system was twice liberalized. Between 1987 and 1990 two important events transpired. First, there was the transition toward free collective bargaining; and second, the practice of paying striking workers was generally discontinued. These phenomena, and the long-standing business practice of keeping private information about firms’ profits, set up two empirical arguments of which were examined: concealing profits from unions suggests an inverse relationship between negotiated wage settlements and strikes in Korea’s manufacturing sector in 1988 and 1990; and since Korean firms generally pursued a “no work-no pay” strike policy by 1990, a reduction in wage settlement increases between 1988 and 1990 is suggested, given strike incidence and strike duration. Qualified evidence of a negatively sloped union resistance curve that shifted downward following implementation of the “no work-no pay” strike policy is found using 1988 and 1990 data sets compiled by the Korea Labor Institute, a research arm of the Korean Ministry of Labor.

Even though no general disclosure duty exists under the U.S. federal securities laws, an issuer has a duty to disclose material non-public corporate information in the following specific circumstances: (i) when a statute or regulation expressly requires disclosure; (ii) when a corporate insider or an issuer trades its stock on confidential information; (iii) when an issuer voluntarily choose to make a public disclosure, it has a duty to disclose sufficient information so that the disclosure made is not false or misleading. In Korea, issuers must disclose corporate information when they go to initial public offerings and file continuing disclosure under KSEA §§ 186-2 and 186-3. However, there is no basis for a duty to update and a duty to correct. Some commentator says KSEA § 186 is a kind of a duty to update because it needs timely disclosure. However, the items listed under § 186 refer to kinds of hard facts that relate to events which have already taken place. A duty to update is about kinds of forward-looking information. For the purpose of improving investor protection by establishing mandatory disclosure, a duty to disclose should be imposed on issuers who distribute their securities to the public. Further, a duty to correct and a duty to update should also be attached to corporate disclosure of material information to provide accurate information to the public. From this point of view, Korea should prepare those duties to force issuers to provide accurate information; in this way, investor protection may be established.