hankyoreh

chair of the Part Time Workers’ Union

Is raising questions about the treatment of part-time workers at one of the world‘s ’top ten best places to work’ enough to land you in jail?

Prosecutors and police filed a second time for arrest warrant against the chairperson of the Part Time Workers’ Union, who staged a surprise demonstration at a McDonald’s restaurant. One of the grounds they gave for the request was the standing of McDonald’s Korea as one of the country‘s “best places to work” for 2015.

The police and prosecutors are now facing criticism for siding too much with the company and focusing solely on surface aspects of the law in order to get the warrant they wanted.

The union provided details on June 15 about the warrant for chairperson Gu Gyo-hyun, in which prosecutors and police described the union’s protests as “repeat offenses.” Their claim is that thirteen unannounced gatherings and demonstrations organized by Gu in front of the McDonald‘s Korea headquarters and other locations between Nov. 2014 and May 2015 constituted violation of domicile and obstruction of duties.

The new tactics appear to have been influenced by a court’s rejection of their previous warrant request for Gu on May 3. In that ruling, the court argued that “domicile requires defined, objective factual circumstances, where the alleged crime for which the warrant was requested was a single 20-minute occupation of a place of business.”

In the new request, prosecutors included a larger number of criminal acts, while taking pains to note that McDonald‘s Korea had been named as one of the country’s “best places for women to work” in 2014 and “best workplaces” in 2015. The aim appears to have been to stress that the union was overreaching in choosing a target where workers were treated well. The prosecutors also expressed fears that workers at McDonald‘s restaurants could “experience harm” if the investigation proceeded without Gu’s arrest.

But there are questions over the appropriateness of citing the opinions of consulting firms to punish a protest to demand the raising of part-time workers’ hourly pay to 10,000 won (US$8.95). Also, the foreign consultancies that choose the ‘best workplaces’ do not consider all businesses for their top ten, only those that request consideration - resulting in a list that consists mainly of foreign companies.

Attorney Kim Ji-mi dismissed the prosecutors’ claims that workers at the restaurants had suffered as a result of the protests.

“When you’re filing a second warrant request, you talk about how serious the crime is and what a bad person this is,” Kim said. “It looks they went a bit overboard in stating their grounds.”

The union held a press conference in front of Seoul Central District Court on June 15 ahead of its review of Gu’s warrant request.

“The decision to make a second warrant request despite having no grounds for concluding that [Gu] will try to flee or destroy evidence can only be seen as an attempt to suppress legitimate labor union activities,” it said.

By Seo Young-ji, staff reporter

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