[Editorial] Guarantee freedom of movement for migrant workers

Posted on : 2017-08-15 16:49 KST Modified on : 2017-08-15 16:49 KST
 speaks about her experience with the employment permit system during a press conference outside of the Blue House on Aug. 14.  The group is protesting the current system
speaks about her experience with the employment permit system during a press conference outside of the Blue House on Aug. 14. The group is protesting the current system

The story of a Nepali migrant worker who recently committed suicide has revealed the dark underbelly of the employment permit system, which has now been in place for 14 years. In his suicide note, 27-year-old Keshav Shrestha, who had been working in South Korea for one year and seven months, explained that he could neither transfer to a different factory or go to Nepal for treatment as he wished. “There’s 3.2 million won [US$2,800] in my bank account. Please give that money to my wife and sister,” he wrote.

This case cannot be regarded as being the problem of a specific company. This is a problem that derives from a system which places extreme restrictions on the occupational choices of migrant workers. As advocacy groups put it during a press conference on Aug. 14, “a man was killed by the employment permit system.”

 a young Bangladeshi migrant worker
a young Bangladeshi migrant worker

Although migrant workers who have entered South Korea on an unskilled employment visa (E9) can change jobs up to three times in three years, they are only allowed to do so with the permission of their employer or in exceptional cases, such as when their employer goes bankrupt or is behind on their wages. There are reportedly two other Nepali migrant workers who ended their lives this year because of the inability to change their workplace.

The “industrial trainee” system that was launched in 1993 as the answer to South Koreans’ reluctance to work in “3D jobs” (jobs regarded as dirty, difficult and dangerous) was called modern-day slavery. The system treated foreign laborers not as workers but as trainees and guaranteed them neither compensation for industrial accidents nor the three labor rights.

Nissa Sajdarun
Nissa Sajdarun

The employment permit system that was adopted in 2004 for workers from 15 countries was designed to guarantee the three labor rights and to create transparency by being directly supervised by the public sector. However, this system has also been criticized for such notorious “poisonous clauses” as its three-year long-term work contracts and its restrictions on changing employers. The government justifies these restrictions because of concerns that workers will hop from job to job. But there is no reason why people who have come to a distant country to work would frequently change their employer without any particular reason, especially considering that they would have to sacrifice their severance pay to do so. In fact, the reality is that a considerable number of employers are taking advantage of these restrictions to exploit their workers in ways including discrimination, forced labor and overdue wages.

As of the end of 2016, there were two million foreigners living in South Korea, or twice as many as there were 10 years ago. We should discuss concerns about the increasing cost of social integration and decreasing jobs for South Korean citizens, but first we ought to eliminate “poisonous clauses” that run contrary to human rights. There also needs to be a public debate about converting to a work permit system that would enable migrant workers to decide for themselves whether to stay [in South Korea] or to return home. No one has the right to rob the people who are doing some of the least-rewarding and most-challenging jobs in the country of their freedom to choose their job; no one has the right to treat them like “invisible men.”

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

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