The Korean Church Solidarity Network with Irregular Workers (KCSNI) of the National Council of Churches in Korea (NCCK) convened a storytelling event last September 8th to share the stories of irregular workers in Korea.
“Even though we would begin the sweaty work of cleaning [the university] at 5:30am, we are treated as less than insects, and we are so sad.” With this one word, a cleaning worker, Ms. Jang, Bo Ah, made everyone’s hearts heavy.
Ms. Jang, Bo Ah, at 60 years old, has only received ₩1,166,000 (approx. $1,015 USD) per month, a net take-home of ₩1,050,000 (approx. $915 USD) per month since 2013 from[the university] as wages for all of her hard work; such is the circumstance of cleaning ladies as irregular workers. However, what saps her of strength even more is the inhumane treatment occurring in her workplace.
On principle they are granted expenses for cleaning supplies, but when they ask their employer to purchase supplies they are scolded and told to buy it with their own money, and in this meager situation where they are not even provided money for meals, they are still expected to buy their supervisor’s lunch with side dishes.
“Although we suffer with the difficult physical labor so that our whole body is in pain, still it would be unthinkable to speak of it to our supervisor. We would only receive a scolding in response; that if we are in pain we shouldjust quit our job”. She expressed her mind to the audience that anyway, she has no time and no money and it is difficult to go to the hospital in this situation, so in order to clean the university, despite dripping with sweat from 5:30 in the morning, she continues being treated as less than an insect.
For this “Irregular Worker’s Story Madang”, the participants who shared their stories were Worker Jang, Bo Ah working as cleaning lady of [the university], Worker Kim, Young living and working for five years as a part-time irregular worker, and Worker Kang, SeongDeok who in connection to being laid off in the autumn of 2014 as an irregular worker for C&M,staged a sit-in protest from high atop an electric billboard in front of the Press Center building.
Worker Kim, Young (24 years old) also told of his experiences trying to pay for tuition fees to Korean National Open University by working various part-time jobs in hotels, theaters, and coffee shops. Living in what is basically a tiny box and earning so little at these different jobs was painful. However, the most difficult part was working in coffee shops and seeing other students studying when he could not request time off for exams; and working in movie theaters on the holidays as other families enjoyed movies with the kind of free time he could not receive. He feared more and more that he was drifting away from the rest of society to become a lonely island.
Worker Kang, SeongDeok began his protest atop the Press Center billboard in order to call out the injustice of his unfair lay-off and his work situation under irregular contracts despite interviewing in 2006 for what he thought would be a regular contract job in cable broadcasting. Instead of a full contract with C&M, it turned out to be a job for a subcontractor Sigma working with C&M. While the contract was tied up in legal proceedings with frozen fees for eight years, the contract ended up being simply cancelled. He then had trouble finding other work specifically because of his membership in a union.
The KCSNI intends to continue learning from and sharing these stories, as irregular contract work is making up a greater percentage of the Korean labor force each year. The KCSNI will try to connect churches and Christians in solidarity with the irregular worker sisters and brothers to pray and demonstrate alongside them. Meanwhile on November 3, the NCCK will hold an official inauguration service of the KCSNI.
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