SPC vows to limit night-shift hours as President Lee slams 'excessive labor'

SPC Samlip's factory in Siheung, Gyeonggi Province / Yonhap

Food conglomerate SPC will introduce an eight-hour cap on night shifts for factory workers, just two days after President Lee Jae Myung visited one of its plants and criticized the excessive working hours as a possible cause of the deaths of workers at the company's plants.

The group’s committee of chief executives held an emergency meeting on Sunday to overhaul its manufacturing system, aimed at limiting overtime to no more than eight hours.

“We plan to make major changes to our overall production structure to eliminate overtime night shifts that exceed eight hours, including hiring more staff, adjusting product types and amount and reorganizing production lines,” the group said in a press release.

“Each subsidiary will develop its own specific plan, and will fully implement the new system on Oct. 1.”

The group also shared that it will cut back on running production lines at night, except for a few essential products, to shorten the operation hours of the factories. It also plans to reduce working hours gradually during the day, aiming to mitigate employee fatigue and maintain optimal levels of concentration, thus minimizing risks of workplace accidents that can come with long working hours.

The measures came two days after Lee visited SPC's factory in Siheung, Gyeonggi Province, where an employee died on May 19 after being caught in a conveyor belt.

"When the same type of accident keeps happening, at the same site, in the same way, there is something fundamentally wrong,” the president said during Friday's visit.

At SPC, a worker was killed in October 2022 after being caught in a machine at a bakery plant in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, and another worker died in August 2023 after being caught in equipment at another bakery plant in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province. “While each case needs to be analyzed individually for the cause of the accident, if lives are being sacrificed for the sake of money and cost-saving, that’s a situation we must change,” Lee said.

Presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung said in a press briefing on Sunday that "pursuing profit at the expense of workers’ lives and safety can never be justified."

"(The president) paid attention to the possibility that the string of similar fatal accidents among SPC Group workers may be linked to long hours of late-night labor," Kang said. "SPC Group responded swiftly in two days with changes after calls were made to value life and invest sufficiently in safety."

President Lee Jae Myung speaks during a meeting at SPC Samlip's factory in Siheung, Gyeonggi Province, Friday. Yonhap

To ensure a smooth transition to the new work schedule, SPC said it will maintain discussions with labor unions and will also update training and guidelines to minimize confusion among its employees during the changeover.

“Going forward, we’re committed to making the safety of our employees the top priority by continually seeking improvements and investing in safer workplaces,” the group said.