E.Land destroys its new American 'Who.A.U.' brand

Veröffentlicht: 30 August 2007
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The infamous Korean retailer E.Land has announced that it will launch a chain of fashion stores in the United States. The first of fifty projected stores will open in Connecticut, at Stamford Town Center, in November. The Who.A.U. stores will target teens and young adults.

Young adults working for the parent company E.Land have been sitting for several weeks in police prisons in Seoul. They have been sent there because their union protested against mass dismissals of large numbers of E.Land shop workers and supermarket cashiers earlier this year.

It is an ugly face that is hiding behind the Who.A.U. stores. E.Land and its founder Park Sung-soo decided to fire young girls and women working in the NewCore, Kim's Club and Homever stores in Korea rather than giving them stable employment contracts. A new labour law would have forced the company to do this once the workers had reached two years of seniority.

When these workers, many who are young mothers with family responsibilities, protested through sit-in strikes at E.Land stores, the company send riot police to break up these pickets. The workers were carried out with force, and seven of them are still retained at police stations in the Korean capital.

Now, Mr Park and his company are targeting teenagers and young women in the United States - not with riot police like in Korea, but with a new store chain. It is supposed to have a Californian feel, company representatives say. So it is far away from the Mapo police prison in Seoul.

If E.Land believes that the young American consumers will not know what the company is up to in its home country Korea, they are making a big mistake. There are already discussions going on with the US trade union movement about how this information can best reach the broad public.

Unless the E.Land finally takes serious steps to resolve its labour relations problems, to take back the workers that it dismissed, and to make sure that the detained local trade union representatives are released immediately, the launch of Who.A.U. will surely be a flop.