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Workers demand the right to sit down during work hours in front of the main branch of Lotte Department Store in Seoul on Oct. 2. (Jung Hwan-bong

A service industry worker wearing a white mask sat down in a chair in front of the main branch of the Lotte Department Store in downtown Seoul on the morning of Oct. 2. This demonstrator was asking for workers in the service and retail industries to be given the right to sit down at department stores and duty-free stores.

On Oct. 2, the Korean Federation of Service Workers’ Unions held a press conference in front of the Lotte Department Store main branch to demand that steps be taken to guarantee service industry workers’ right to health. Ten years have passed since hypermarket workers asked for chairs so that they could work sitting down in 2008. While this campaign did bring about change, with chairs being placed at the cash registers at some hypermarkets, sitting down is still not an option for the majority of service industry workers.

“The chairs that were positioned at department stores are just a formality. Ten years have passed since chairs were added for workers’ health, but the reality has hardly changed,” said Kang Gyu-hyeok, the federation’s chair. In response, the federation launched a campaign on Oct. 1 in which service industry workers serve customers from a seated position every day at 3 pm.

“The 2.04 million workers in the retail sales service are suffering from unstable employment and poor working conditions,” participants at the press conference said. “Their toes are twisted because they don’t have a chair to sit down in; even when they have chairs they aren’t allowed to sit down; and they develop bladder infections because they aren’t allowed to go to the bathroom. They don’t even have access to a decent break room.”

The federation of service workers’ union is planning to continue its “sit down” campaign until these issues are dealt with.

South Korea’s official industrial safety and health standards require employers to provide chairs for workers who have to stand up for long periods of time.

By Jung Hwan-bong, staff reporter

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