hankyoreh

Lee Eun-se’s hand-written poster in support of a boycott of SPC Group hangs on a bulletin board at a three-way intersection by the Seoul National University student dormitories. (provided by Lee)

“The story of young Paris Baguette bakers in their 20s and 30s is the story of people just like myself. I refuse to consume the tears of my peers. I hope more people join the boycott against the SPC Group and that this will lead to even greater solidarity.”

This is part of what 20-year-old Seoul National University College of Humanities student Lee Eun-se wrote in her hand-written poster that she put up on the bulletin board at the three-way intersection near the university’s student dormitories on Tuesday. Lee is part of a group that’s taking collective action urging Seoul National University to stop hiring workers on a temporary, irregular basis.

While the French national trade union center General Confederation of Labour recently held a protest denouncing the unjust labor practices of SPC Partners in front of a Paris Baguette store in Paris, the boycott movement against the SPC Group is spreading beyond online communities and onto university campuses in South Korea.

Paris Baguette bakers have been struggling against their company, an SPC affiliate, demanding an end to its unjust labor practices — including pressuring workers to leave the labor union and promoting employees based on discriminatory preferences — as well as an apology.

In order to support peers working at Paris Baguette, college students are putting up hand-written posters to raise awareness about the bakery franchise’s unjust labor practices and to encourage people to join the boycott movement against SPC products. As of Thursday, seven hand-written posters were on display at Seoul National University, while more posters are being put up at Sungkonghoe University, Sogang University, Hanshin University, and Chung-Ang University.

During a phone call with the Hankyoreh, Lee Hyeon-su, a 23-year-old Chung-Ang University College of Social Sciences student who showed his solidarity with Paris Baguette workers through a poster of his own, said, “I thought it was regrettable that despite SPC’s longstanding labor suppression, citizens and fellow students lacked awareness of the issue and showed so much enthusiasm for ‘Pokémon bread,’ a product from an SPC affiliate.”

“As a young person myself, I thought that the most appropriate way to show my solidarity with Paris Baguette laborers and raise awareness of the issue among citizens and fellow students was to put up a hand-written poster,” he added.

It’s also becoming harder to find gift vouchers for SPC affiliate products being used during university programming. A departmental student union at Yonsei University’s College of Social Science announced on Monday that it would sell Baskin-Robbins gift vouchers as part of its finals period snack distribution program, but the option was substituted with another product when students criticized the move, pointing out that the ice cream franchise was an SPC affiliate.

A member of the student union’s leadership said, “After we posted an announcement of the snack distribution program that contained an image of the product in question, students anonymously shared their opinion that it was inappropriate to include an SPC product [in the program] when the brand was stirring controversy due to labor rights issues, after which we decided to substitute the product upon internal discussions.”

Some observers have pointed out that such a boycott could deal a blow to franchisees of SPC affiliates who are, in the end, small business owners. In turn, those participating in the boycott have said that this argument obfuscates the social responsibility big corporations should live up to. In other words, they say SPC should resolve the issue by putting an end to its unjust labor practices.

“It’s a distortion to say SPC and franchisees are on the same side and are being attacked by citizens when citizens have merely come together to help solve the problems SPC neglected and idly looked on all this time,” said Kim Geon-su, an administrator at a youth collective that supports Paris Baguette’s laborers, adding, “The fastest and most proper solution would be for SPC to resolve the problems that have been raised with social responsibility.”

By Ko Byung-chan, staff reporter

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