It is an outrage that Emart is stubbornly going about revengeful personnel management moves towards employees for engaging in union activities, putting them through a process of suspension, reinstatement, on-call duty, lay off, reinstatement, and contract termination. You can fully sympathize with three female employees who angrily ask how their employer could play such abusive games. The three women were informed their contracts were being terminated a mere five days after getting their jobs back, having been earlier laid off.
The whole affair started when employees created Emart's first union last December, in order to stand up to a company that was making them do two hours of clean up duty beyond their regular work hours. The management fought at them with various forms of coercive persuasion, and eventually the union had only four members left. One was fired and the other three were suspended. Emart is not the only problem, either; the case shows you what position irregular workers find themselves in in our society. It is nothing new to see a company try to punish employees who protest against company policy with things like contract termination.
Emart executives have behaved as if they can just laugh at the Gyeonggi Regional Labor Commission's reinstatement order, since they tried everything to try to keep from reinstating them only to reinstate them and immediately inform them their contracts were expiring. This is a company that has long talked about its "ethics-based management." "Restructuring doesn't solve everything," the company once stated. "Whatever management crises there may be in the future we will seek to respond and overcome them with fundamental measures, and ethical corporate management is the only way to do that."
It is a mockery of the company's workers to and customers to have such a two-faced approach to management. The Suwon Regional Labor Office says it has sent the case to the Suwon Prosecutor's Office, suggesting Emart might deserve to be charged with violating labor laws. Already, however, there are people expressing doubt about whether the prosecution will handle the case like it should. We hope to see the prosecution put its reputation on the line and handle the case swiftly and impartially.
The Hankyoreh, 15 July 2005.
[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]
[Editorial] Emart Playing Cruel Games With Irregular Workers |
