ed Foreign workers' rights

Extremely low wages. Filthy and dangerous work environments. Rampant abuse of workers’ rights. These were common in Korea’s industries during the 1970s and ’80s.

Not much has changed three or four decades later ― for many foreigners working at Korean firms, both here and abroad.

According to the National Human Rights Commission, which investigated human rights abuses by Korean businesses operating abroad, some foreign workers saw their wages cut for spending a little more time in restrooms than others and had to eat their meals while standing up due to a lack of time. In many factories, three or four workers collapsed each week from overwork.

Domestic media did not pay much attention to recent demonstrations by garment workers in Cambodia, which expanded into mass protests and resulted in casualties amid a violent police crackdown. But foreign reports say Korean firms there, along with Taiwanese and Japanese companies, all but triggered the incident by paying paltry salaries to local employees.

Korean employers have reportedly been adhering to the unrealistically low legal minimum wage of $80 a month, set by the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen, while workers called for an increase to $160 claiming that is the minimal sum required to make a living.

Foreign investors may not be responsible for the steep inflation gripping the Southeast Asian country. Nor can Korean companies, most of which are small and medium-sized enterprises, redouble wage levels abruptly and without a corresponding rise in labor productivity. Still they should be ready to readjust wages to more realistic levels and, more importantly, raise the standards of safety and other working conditions.

The government, particularly the foreign ministry, export-promotion agencies and human rights bodies, should conduct a joint monitoring of Korean businesses overseas, and impose strict codes of conduct, such as the one recommended by the OECD on multinational corporations, and punish violators more sternly. All this is necessary for Korea not to repeat past mistakes made at home now in foreign countries. In short, Corporate Korea should not reproduce the sweatshops of Cheonggyecheon in the 1970s in the Southeast Asian countries of today.

Korea needs to show it is no longer mired in pariah capitalism that makes light of labor’s contribution to the economy. President Park Geun-hye was right in this regard to ask the large Indian shareholder of Ssangyong Motor to consider rehiring workers dismissed amid the restructuring of the Korean carmaker years ago.

It would have been much better, however, had the Park administration taken corresponding measures at home, by advising the management of the nation’s fifth-largest automaker to withdraw its enormous damage suit against the union. Such a move would not only make Park’s request for the Indian owner of the Korean firm more persuasive but set an example for the Korean garment makers in Cambodia, who reportedly are planning to file similar suits for compensation against local labor unions.

After all, economic equality is what the Davos Forum in which President Park is participating is talking about.