E Land using falsified documents to avoid law

Posted on : 2007-07-13 15:30 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Civic groups announce illegalities in an effort to prevent further worker abuse

Civic groups organized by lawyers and professors said at a press conference on July 12, saying that illegal changes in workplace conditions for non-regular workers have been brought about by New Core and E-Land.

According to them, a 21-year-old resident of Anyang in Gyeonggi Province known as Geum, who requested that her first name be withheld, began to work at a New Core store, one of retail arms of E-Land Group, in Pyeongchon as a cashier in April last year. When signing the contract, she wrote just her address, phone number, resident registration number and name on the contract form. She was not informed about her working conditions, including her wages, working hours and contract terms.

A year later, an outlet manager told her, “We can’t hire people who have worked here for over a year. You should renew your contract using somebody else’s name.” Geum signed the contract under the name of Kim Eun-gyeong, her sister’s friend. Once again, she wrote only Kim’s name, address, phone number and resident registration number on the contract form. Once again, the working conditions were not stated in the contract form and her wages were transferred to a bank account opened under Kim’s name. While at work, Geum had to wear a name tag bearing Kim Eun-gyeong’s name. Geum had become another person.

Approximately one month later, the manager of the Pyeongchon outlet gave her a copy of the contract, which she had signed under the name of Kim. The document stated that the contract terms expired on June 30, just a day before the new non-regular worker protection law took effect. According to Geum, however, she had never been notified of the contract expiration date upon signing the contract form.

On June 10, the manager informed Geum, “As of June 30, all of our cashiers will be replaced by workers from temporary agencies. Until then, you will have to take on other work stacking boxes in the basement. After that, become an outsourced worker, or you will have to quit your job.”

Up to this point, Geum had been paid 3,500 won (US$3.80) per hour, 20 won higher than the minimum wage. Due to what the company deemed as her heavy workload, she got additional 100 won per hour. Then, the non-regular worker protection law, which requires companies to change the legal status of its non-regular workers to regular if they have worked more than two years for the company, took effect on July 1. The day before the law went into effect, more than 900 non-regular workers with E-Land group were laid off.

The civic groups state that E-Land Group adopted illegal means to replace their cashiers with workers from temporary agencies before the nation implemented the law, presenting copies of illegal contract forms, similar to the one which had been made for Geum. The statement was made at Cheongun-dong in downtown Seoul near the Presidential office.

Yeo Yeon-sim of Lawyers for Democratic Society said, “The company ordered non-regular workers like Geum to sign new contracts under other people’s names after a year of employment so they would not have to provide severance packages as required by law.”

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]

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