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People lay wreaths at a memorial for a 19-year-old irregular worker who died repairing a sliding door at Guui Subway Station in Seoul

As people continue to mourn for a 19-year-old worker surnamed Kim who was killed while repairing a sliding door on the platform at Guui Subway Station in Seoul, there are increasing demands for specific measures to be taken to prevent low-wage workers from being shouldered with hazardous jobs.

On June 4, the Part-Time Workers’ Union held nationwide demonstrations, one of which took place in front of the branch of McDonalds outside Guui Station. During the demonstration, the union issued a statement rejecting dangerous jobs.

“This accident is the responsibility of Seoul Metro for outsourcing safety control to third parties and for not even realizing that a malfunction had taken place. It is also the responsibility of the government for only caring about cutting costs for public companies,” the union said.

During the demonstration, Park Jeong-hun, chair of the Part-Time Workers’ Union, cited a statistic stating that an average of five workers die on the job every day. “How much are the lives of part-time and irregular workers worth? 6,030 won (US$5.16) an hour. Cheap wages don’t mean that our lives are cheap, too. We have to stop the train of greed that is being fueled by our lives,” Park said.

Demonstrations were also held simultaneously in Daegu, Gwangju, Cheonan, Jeonju, Daejeon and Ulsan. Demonstrators asked for safe jobs and a minimum wage of 10,000 won (US$8.50), arguing that the “logical consequence of cutting costs is forcing part-time workers to do dangerous jobs.”

On the same day, a press conference was held in front of the main office of the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) in Yeouido, Seoul, by a group of irregular workers demanding that technicians at Samsung, SK, LG, Taekwang and CNM be guaranteed their rights and that these conglomerates take responsibility for technicians as their real employers. At the press conference, the group argued that the fundamental cause of the sliding door accident at Guui Station was “Seoul city and Seoul Metro’s policy of outsourcing.”

“This kind of outsourcing is already widespread at Samsung Electronics Service, Taekwang’s T-Broad cable, and other companies in the electronics, cable broadcasting and telecommunications industries. The new session of the National Assembly and the government need to resolve the issue of irregular workers at these companies, which is leading to labor disputes, and to hold the chaebols responsible, since they are the real employers of these workers,” the group said during the press conference.

A memorial procession has been taking place every evening since June 6, with participants holding candles walking 2 km from Guui Station to Konkuk University Medical Center, where a memorial altar has been set up for Kim.

By Kim Mi-young and Lee Jae-uk, staff reporters

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