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The Asian Human Rights Commission condemns the behaviour of Korean retailer E.Land and the country's government in connection with the ongoing labour conflict. The authoritative commission, which consists of highly respected judges, lawyers and academics from different Asian countries, point at reports by 'various professors and lawyers which say that E.Land has falsified documents to avoid having to regularise its non-regular workers, such as required by a new law. The government ignored the falsifications, and clamped down on the workers instead.

E.Land falsified documents

- According to the fact-finding report carried out by a various professors and lawyers regarding the workers' rights 12 July 2007, it is reported that E-Land has falsified employment documents with individual workers so that their contracts would not have to be transformed into a regular basis. The report says that E-Land management has forced irregular employees to sign up under other people's names after having worked for a year in the company's stores, the Human Rights Commission says.

- Also the workers were forced to sign for the contract without describing exact contract period, such as 'blank contract' (without filling out the period of contract) which is obviously illegal. Therefore, they are deprived of the chance to qualify for a regular contract after two years of employment, as provided by the new labour law.

The Government ignored E.Land's falsifications

The AHRC which is headed by a former Indian High Court Judge heavily criticises the Korean authorities for their handling of the conflict:

- ... the government did not investigate those illegal acts by the company and has failed to settle the disputes and instead has ignited them by forcibly cracking down on the workers' protest, the Asian judges, lawyers and academics say.

AHRC confirm the trade union view on how events unfolded

AHRC's description of the events fully confirms the views of the Korean trade unions and their international organisations, such as UNI. We quote the report:

- According to the information we have received, due to a new labour law stating that irregular workers would automatically be granted regular status if they worked for a company for more than two years, a company called 'New Core Outlet' dismissed about 300 irregular workers before the law came into force and another company called 'Homever' dismissed at about 500 irregular workers after the law was enacted. Both are subsidiary companies of E-Land Group. Most dismissed workers were women, supermarket and department store cashiers and sales assistant workers of the company under the Group with very insecure employment conditions. After the mass dismissal, the E-Land Group substituted them with employees outsourced from temporary employment agencies.

- Since 1 July 2007, the labour union at the E-land Group continued their sit-in protest at 'New Core Outlet' department store complex in central Seoul and 'Homever' in World Cup Stadium in Seoul until 20 July against the mass dismissal of irregular workers. The strike at the 'Homever' lasted for 21 days and the strike at the 'New Core Outlet' continued for 14 days.

- On Friday July 20, more than 7,000 policemen broke down reconstructed barriers set up by the striking workers and moved in to forcibly remove the striking workers from the store. The police took 169 protestors from the two companies to several police stations and they were released. Some workers were injured in the 30 minutes during this process. Only 9 days after the demonstration was broken up, members of the union once again started a sit-in protest at 'New Core Outlet' in Seoul, on July 29. The government sent its riot police again to crack down on the protesters from 'New Core outlet'.

- Now, three core members of E-Land trade union, the president named KIM Kyung-Wook (37), the vice president Mr. LEE Nam-Sin and general secretary Mrs. LEE Kyung-Oak were arrested on charges of organising an illegal strike when riot police stormed picketing protestors. Moreover, other E-Land unionists are allegedly threatened to be arrested and huge individual compensation claims have been filed by the employer for business interference and losses incurred by the sit-in strikes.

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