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Launch of HomePlus labour union in Korea
Hundreds of workers from HomePlus’s 50 stores in Korea have already submitted online applications to join the union which was officially launched last week. Korea HomePlus has ended the anti-union stance it inherited from the Samsung Group 14 years ago. The HomePlus group is owned by Tesco.
HomePlus Labor Union was established on March 24 and ratified by the government on March 28. The following day a press conference was held outside of Prosecutors’ Office building with the participation of Bro. Kang Gyu-Hyok, president of KKPSU and officials, Jay Choi, UNI-Korea Coordinator, lawyers Kwon Young-Kook and Kang Moon-Dae, HomePlus Union officials, Jang Han-na( Democratic United Party), and Lee Sang-Kyu(United Progressive Party).
Bro. Kim Ki-Wan, president of the HomePlus Labor Union said at the press conference, “The company’s development into a mega-size enterprise with 101 stores and W12trillion worth of sales has come at a huge cost to the workers. From now on we will no longer be silenced and the public will hear how workers have been repressed. We will submit a lawsuit against HomePlus to claim for unpaid overtime payments.”
In the case of unpaid overtime, two union officials used the smart phone application, Nightime Work Clock, to accumulate the records of the actual hours worked, between December 2012 to March 2013. This is because there is no check-card system at the workplace, as HomePlus management removed it three years ago without any proper explanation to employees. According to HomePlus Labour Union officials, workers were routinely doing over 12 hours of involuntary overtime for many years. About 30,000 workers at HomePlus have been working unpaid overtime.
HomePlus Labor Union will open for union membership for regular and non-regular workers of 101 HomePlus stores, while existing HomePlus Tesco Union which succeeded from E-Land union now represents about 700 union members at 22 stores out of 33 stores.
Many companies in Korea have taken an aggressively non-union stance. UNI-Commerce has been providing organizing support to KPSU. KPSU extended its “Opening Hour Limit Campaign” over the last three years and succeeded in getting in place legislation for the opening and closing hours of hypermarkets. This success triggered the awareness of unionism among workers at HomePlus and they began to fight to set up a union.
In 2010 UNI-Commerce conducted a survey on working conditions at Tesco stores in Thailand, South Korea and USA and subsequently published a report of the findings.
Further information, please contact Jay Choi, UNI-APRO Korea Desk Coordinator