[Opinion] Abusive Company Owners

When Korea was suffering from absolute poverty in the early 1960s, West Germany promised to lend 150 million marks in commercial loans to Korea. At that time, getting a guarantee of payment was an obstacle. A bank guarantee was required for a commercial loan, but Korea’s credit rating was too low to get a guarantee. As a last resort, Korea sent nurses and mine workers to West Germany. Commerzbank issued a guarantee using the wages of 7,000 nurses and mine workers as collateral. The Germans warmly welcomed Korean workers partly because of the diligence of those workers. The Germans were surprised at the Korean mine workers who had graduated from universities and who read “The Critique of Pure Reason.”

In December 1964, a mining town in Germany was filled with tears. Korean nurses and mine workers were crying hard in front of President Park Chung-hee, who was there to console them. President Park was also crying and so was the First Lady. Those tears were translated into “the miracle of the Han River,” which represents the enormous economic progress Korea made in the past. Now the situation is totally different. Korea imports foreign workers who perform hard labor for Koreans. A Chinese worker, who came to Korea to make a fortune but lost his life, wrote in his diary, “The boss gave me only 900,000 won and has yet to give me another 60,000 won. He just keeps saying that he will give the money. Koreans are like that. They press us when we work and delay payments.”

According to a survey late last month, 1,459 foreign workers were not paid the average of 2.15 million won each, totaling 3.137 billion won. For workers from underdeveloped nations, 2.15 million won is huge. It takes them more than 18 months to earn that amount of money. What is concerning is that some company owners deliberately delay payments, thereby exploiting foreign workers who should leave Korea as soon as they have stayed here for more than four years. One cannot and should not get blood from a turnip.

Now that the bill to protect foreign workers’ rights by the law passed at the National Assembly last July, the system is considered to fit the global standard. Many company owners treat foreign workers as their families. However, Koreans are stigmatized as human rights abusers because of some abusive employers. In this vein, it is welcomed that the government has decided to take a harder stance and keep in custody to investigate those employers who deliberately or repeatedly delay paying foreign workers. The government should take one step further to strictly punish those who employ illegal foreign workers. Illegal foreign workers will hide and work as long as they can find a job, and then Korea will not be free from the blame for violations of human rights.