An audio file said to be of an abusive dialogue between a sales manager working for Namyang Dairy Products Co. and the owner of a sales agency posted on YouTube last week is creating a big stir.
Since the file of the verbal exchange, allegedly between the 52-year-old owner of a Namyang sales agency surnamed Kim and the manager went online, civic groups and Internet users have launched a boycott of its products, lashing out at the nation’s largest dairy products company.
Namyang said it fired the sales manager in his 30s three years ago, when the audio file was first heard, and published an apology under the CEO’s name on its website.
On the audio, the voice said to be the sales manager is heard intimidating Kim into buying more products shouting, “I don’t care if you are ruined. How dare you disobey my demands?’’
Members of the public who have heard this remain indignant because the young manager used foul language against the store owner who was much older.
The Namyang case is a typical example vividly showing how small business owners are suffering distress from unfair and illegal business practices at the hands of their bigger partners. It’s lamentable to hear that Namyang even forced its sales agents to buy products that had exceeded expiration dates.
The verbal abuse case is the third incident of its kind that has sparked public resentment recently in connection with an entrenched practice in our society that the weak ― the store owner in this case ― should be subservient to the strong. On April 24, a well-known bakery chairman apologized for attacking an employee of a top-class hotel in downtown Seoul after being asked to move his car elsewhere. Earlier in the month, a POSCO Energy executive was fired by the company after creating a stir by smacking a flight attendant with a magazine.
All these incidents show how rampant this twisted obedience culture has become in our society. This unequal relationship capitalizing on a party’s superior status under a contract can be found easily between large and small companies, public servants and private company officials and large retailers and entered store owners. Our deep-seated “winner-takes-all’’ culture, based on an asymmetric power balance, must be blamed in part for this unequal situation between the contract parties.
What matters most is that law enforcement has been lenient toward the strong. In this regard, the government should strengthen penalties against those who inflict damage on the weak by abusing their position of power. And large companies need to improve the education of their employees.