Officials raid E-mart for alleged illegal staff monitoring

About 150 Labor and Employment Ministry officials on Thursday raided the headquarters of E-Mart, Korea’s largest discount store chain, for the company`s alleged illegally monitoring of employees to prevent them from joining a union.

Investigators raided E-Mart’s headquarters in eastern Seoul and six outlets in the capital and other cities across the country, as well as two labor consulting companies known to have advised the discounter and the homes of several E-Mart employees.

The raid focused on the headquarters’ personnel affairs department, with officials seizing electronic and paper documents and accounting books related to the company’s labor relations.

In addition, agents from the Supreme Prosecutors Office’s Digital Forensic Center went through the computers and mobile phones of E-mart staff and partially restored deleted data.

In mid-January, opposition parties and E-Mart’s union alleged that the retail giant systemically attempted to undermine the union`s organization by monitoring labor organizers, illegally firing certain workers for joining the union, and bribing government labor officials.

The Labor Ministry inspected the company’s labor practices in late January, verifying violations of labor law, and then extended the investigation through Feb. 15. According to the ministry, E-mart`s refusal to cooperate with the inspection has prompted the raid.

starsky@donga.com