Hope, Not Despair |
An ‘aerial protest’ by a Korean activist to embrace another freezing weather, celebrating 300 days (2) |
| by Yu-Kyung Lee, Pusan & Seoul, 03 November 2011 |
Fraudulent deal and Consequence
On a windy but sunny day in early October, some dozens of workers gathered in front of the HHIC main gate for their morning campaign. “Lay off is a murder” reads one of banners that strikers held around their neck. This is a popular saying in the country reflecting weakening job security in recent decade.
“I never knew any strike or workers’ rights” said Mun-Suk (45), one of the two women workers who got dismissed. She said her husband is casual worker who’s routinely faced with dismissal.
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| photo: Yu-Kyung Lee |
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Another striker was Park Moon-Sik (36), who has worked for HHIC more than 9 years. Park said his wage in the first years was much lower than others might think as HHIC was one of Chaebols, family-owned business conglomerate in Korea-. He had been paid less than 1 million KWN (approx. 900 UUD) for many years.
“Our wage has been raised up about 40% since 2003 when two comrades killed themselves” said Park.
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HHIC has been notorious with low payment, growing number of casual workers and terrible quality of working condition, lunch meal in particular, which Ms. Kim has described in her book as follows ;
“In 80s, we had swallowed the black and boiled barley filled-lunch meal mixed with undrinkable smelly (industrial) water at a place where rats ran about.”
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It seems terrible quality of meal has transmitted to the Hanjin’s new shipbuilding facility in Subic Freeport Zone (former US Naval base) in the Phillippines. Hanjin has invested 1.3 billion dollars for Subic facility since 2006 while having privileges, such as 50 year lease agreement and tax benefits given by the government of the Philippines. The world 4th largest shipbuilding company has provided shabby meal to workers, who are all casual workers employed via sub-contractors. There have been more than 30 workers killed since its launch caused by poor working conditions without adequate safety measures.
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| photo: Yu-Kyung Lee |
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“It’s not possible to explain Hanjin trouble in Korea without looking into the one in the Philippines” said Professor. Hur Min-Young, a specialist on shipment industry.
“It is because of this expanded investment that Hanjin has had difficulty. The corporation has to yearly pay some 200 billion KWN (approx. 200 million USD) for interest of loan that was used for investment in Subic”.
Apart from this, the company has paid 541.6 billion KWN (approx. 500million USD) as a forfeit for illegal inheritance.
“Fundamentally” Prof. Hur continued, “this is a problem of Chaebol whose way of run the business never was questioned for their mismanagement. Instead, workers pay the price” He termed it ‘imperial management’.
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