Most coffee outlets underpay part-timers

By Kim Tae-jong

The majority of major coffee house chains were found to have breached the Labor Law by not paying the extra wages they are obliged to pay to part-time workers, officials from a civic group and coffee chains said.

Under the current law, a part-time worker, paid hourly, is entitled to an extra “weekly bonus,” which employers must pay to those who work for more than 15 hours a week in a similar concept of payable holiday allowances.

For example, if a part-timer, who receives 5,000 won per hour, worked for 25 hours a week, he is entitled to 25,000 won in an extra weekly bonus plus 125,000 won in regular hourly wages.

However, over 82 percent of major coffee chains did not pay the extra wage to the eligible part-time employees, the Youth Community Union (YCU) said.

For two months to August, the youth rights civic group surveyed part-time staff of 251 outlets of the seven major franchises nationwide — Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, Caffe Bene, Angel-in-us, Starbucks, Caffe Pascucci, Tom N Toms Coffee and A Twosome Place.

According to the survey, 100 percent of the 40 Coffee Bean surveyed outlets did not pay the extra wage. The percentage stood at 91 percent for Caffe Bene and 70 percent for Starbucks.

“Most franchises exploit part-time workers without informing them of the extra ‘weekly bonus’ or deceiving them into believing that it is only given to regular workers or those who work more than 40 hours a week,” said Cho Sung-joo, an official from the YCU.

The total amount of unpaid wages at the seven coffee franchises is estimated to be around 20 billion won ($18.6 million), he said.

The union also raised allegations that some franchises such as Starbucks avoid paying the bonus by having employees work less than 15 hours per week in their labor contract. In reality, they allegedly force them to work more hours anyway.

Regarding the accusation, most franchises admitted that they had not paid the week bonuses to their part-time workers.

“We stopped paying the weekly bonus from last year as we thought it was not reasonable to pay even those who only worked for a couple of days per week,” an official from one of the major coffee outlets said. “But if we must pay the weekly bonus, we’ll do so from now on.”

In a sneaky tactic most coffee franchises will probably hire part-time workers to work only less than 15 hours a week in the future in order not to pay the additional benefits to their employees, he added.

Other coffee house chains also said they will strengthen the instruction for the heads of outlets so that they pay proper wages to part-time workers.

The YCU demanded the government strengthen the supervision on such illegal practices in order to protect the rights of part-time workers.

The Ministry of Employment and Labor is responsible to oversee these matters but fails to recognize the seriousness of the issue.

“By law, all workplaces should give their employees a weekly bonus when they work more than 15 hours per week,” Kim Ki-yong, supervisor at Labor Improvement Policy Department, said. “As far as I know, there are few coffee house chains that pay the weekly bonus to their part-time employees.”