The IT Committee of the Korean Chemical, Textile, Food and Rural Workers' Union announced on the 28th a strong stance of opposition to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism's plans to flexibilize the 52-hour workweek system and expand the discretionary work system for the game sector.

According to an announcement by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism on April 30, the government [regarding] the Culture and Arts Policy Advisory Committee At the second meeting of the Game Division, it was decided to consult with the Ministry of Employment and Labor on a plan to expand the application of the discretionary work system, which was previously applied only to programmers under the current Enforcement Decree of the Labor Standards Act, to workers in various roles such as planning and graphics. The IT Committee of the Chemical Fibers and Food Workers' Union argued regarding this, "It is a dangerous attempt to spread the crunch mode practices of the game industry, which was once stigmatized as an industry of death from overwork, back to the entire industry." The committee pointed out that the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), under the World Health Organization, classifies night work as a Group 2 carcinogen, and that "crunch mode," where overtime and all-nighters become commonplace for months to meet release schedules, is a dark history that has resulted in numerous industrial accidents, including the serial deaths of Netmarble workers between 2016 and 2017. They added that since planning and graphics roles in the game development field are subordinate to project schedules and management directives, the application of a discretionary work system would inevitably be exploited as a loophole to legitimize virtually unlimited labor. Criticism also emerged that this contradicts the government's labor policy stance. The committee argued that it is a contradiction for the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to pursue a plan that effectively expands working hours, despite President Lee Jae-myung having pledged the phased introduction of a 4.5-day workweek as a core national agenda and Gyeonggi Province already conducting a pilot project. Past remarks by Oh Se-yoon, Chairman of the IT Committee of the Chemical Fibers and Food Workers' Union, were also presented as grounds. At an interim report meeting on the joint demands held on March 26, Chairman Oh emphasized, "We must distinguish between what AI tools can do and what humans must do, and IT workers should focus on creative tasks that humans excel at," adding, "To do so, it is necessary to gradually reduce working hours." The issue of excluding workers from the opinion-gathering process was also pointed out. The committee explained that the list of eight members to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism's Game Subcommittee includes only representatives from employer organizations, association presidents, and academia, with not a single labor union official representing the workers who actually create games included. The IT Committee of the Chemical, Textile, and Food Workers' Union demanded that the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism immediately halt the push to expand the job categories eligible for the discretionary work system, ensure equal participation of IT and game labor unions in discussions on the flexibility of the 52-hour workweek, and actively review plans to introduce a 4.5-day workweek that aligns with the government's stance on reducing working hours. The committee stated that it would stand in solidarity until the end to create industrial policies that allow workers to work creatively.