Officially North Koreans work for eight hours a day, 48 hours a week. Pyongyang proclaimed an "eight-hour-per-day working system" in the "20-article platform" of the proposed democratic provisional government, made public in March 1946 in the wake of Korea's liberation from Japanese colonial rule the previous year. The North Korea Provisional People's Committee, the executive arm of the Pyongyang regime, enforcing a series of Communist reform measures under the name of "democratic reform," adopted a labor law incorporating an "either-hour-per-day working system." Reflected intact in the "socialist labor law," amended in April 1978, the system remains in force today.

North Korea's "eight-hour-per-day working system" is logically based on the principle of equally matching labor, rest and study, allotting eight hours to each. This is also in harmony with the "three principal revolutions" of ideology, technology and culture, touted by Pyongyang as the general guidelines of socialism.

The North describes the "eight-hour-per-day working system" as a "48-hour-per-week working system" as well, figuring out weekly working hours based on six working days a week. At all plants and business establishments in the North, the blue- and white-color workers perform their duties five days a week from Monday till Friday. On Sunday, the so-called "political-study day," they take part in political events like the consolidation of life and political study, lectures and lessons. Those who are on temporary duties at other establishments have to return to their own job sites to attend political events. If circumstances don't permit it, they have to participate in political events at work places they are assigned to on temporary duty and submit notes certifying to that effect to the bosses of their own job sites.

Workers at cooperative farms take a day off every ten days, not on a weekly basis. Though it differs depending on regions, they usually take off the 1st, 11th and 21st of the month. On such days, markets are opened in rural areas.

North Korean workers, both blue- and white-color, begin their daily work at 8.00am and quit at 5.00pm. But the rule is not strictly observed. If need arises, working hours are often extended at plants and business establishments. When a nationwide labor campaign, dubbed "70-day combat" or "100-day combat," is waged, the working hour rules lose their meaning.

No set working hours exist in the rural areas. By custom, they start work when the run rises and return home at sunset. Accordingly, they work longer hours in summer when daylight lasts longer and relatively less hours in winter.

National Defense Commission Chairman Kim Jong Il once issued an edict calling for workers to start work at 5:00am and quit at 2:00pm, with the purported aims of boosting productivity and according the population longer leisure hours. Following a month-long experimentation, however, the order was withdrawn in the face of public complaints, among others. When the experimentation ended, the office-going hour was advanced by one hour to 8:00am from 9.00am.

(Kim Kwangt In, kki@chosun.com )