With foreign workers increasingly assuming a crucial role on many of South Korea’s farms, there is growing sentiment that the uglier aspects of the migrant worker experience, ranging from human rights abuses to punishing amounts of overwork, need to be addressed. (Image: Yonhap)
GOESAN COUNTY, March 20 (Korea Bizwire) — With foreign workers increasingly assuming a crucial role on many of South Korea’s farms, there is growing sentiment that the uglier aspects of the migrant worker experience, ranging from human rights abuses to punishing amounts of overwork, need to be addressed.
Foreign workers found on farms come through either the seasonal work program or the employment permit system.
The seasonal work program was first introduced in Goesan County in North Chungcheong Province in 2015 after the rural region, which is renowned for its locally grown salted cabbage, persistently faced a shortage of suitable farmhands come harvest season.
The seasonal work program was first introduced in Goesan County in North Chungcheong Province in 2015 after the rural region, which is renowned for its locally grown salted cabbage, persistently faced a shortage of suitable farmhands come harvest season. (Image: Yonhap)
The program offers a maximum of three months’ work to foreign workers, and it must be approved by the Ministry of Justice.
Goesan’s near absence of companies and public offices that offer white-collar jobs had already caused younger adults to head to more urban centers, leaving behind a town of near 40,000 where 30.8 percent are 65 years of age or older.
After starting with 19 Chinese workers from Goesan’s sister city of Ji’an, the number of incoming Chinese via the seasonal work program has increased every year. A total of 73 came to pluck cabbage in the fields of Goesan from Ji’an in 2016, and 120 did the same the following year.
The county office has revealed that 193 workers from Ji’an will come to work in the first and second half of this year. The earlier workers will help farm tobacco, ginseng and pepper, and the later arrivals will focus on the all-important cabbage crop.
An individual with ties to the county office said, “Because agriculture is a 3D job [Dirty, Difficult, Dangerous] finding farmhands in an agricultural village is next to impossible. It’s thanks to the seasonal foreign workers that the labor problem is at least somewhat alleviated.”
Other farming communities around the country seem to concur with this individual’s views, as around 2,300 seasonal foreign workers are set to land in 31 different municipalities this year.
In addition to the seasonal work program, South Korea’s employee permit system, a foreign laborer placement scheme in fishing, manufacturing and agriculture – leading examples of 3D industries – has made the sight of foreigners laboring in South Korea’s countryside a more common one.
Hailing from 16 countries, the workers are generally granted E-9 visas and are allowed three-year stays with the option of a 22-month extension. Initially 2,000 to 5,000 were placed on farms, but since 2013 that number has hovered around 6,000.
This year, 5,870 are expected to toil on South Korean farms, yet judging by the calls coming out of the agricultural sector asking for more workers, demand appears to be outstripping labor supply.
While the arrival of foreign workers has proved to be a beneficial addition for South Korea’s farmers, allegations of horrid working and living conditions, abuse and other troubling aspects of workers’ experiences have marred the image of the employee permit system.
No major story has yet come out from foreign participants of the seasonal work program, with some attributing the absence of such matters to the work scheme’s relative brevity. However, with municipalities calling on the Ministry of Justice to consider expanding the duration of the seasonal work program, civic groups and the Ministry of Employment and Labor have expressed opposition to the idea, citing the possibility of an increase in the number of labor and housing indignities suffered by foreign workers.
At any rate, while problems with the seasonal work program in terms of human rights violations remain hypothetical or unreported, experts have already urged the government to revise the employee permit system, pointing to the restriction placed on foreign workers’ job transfer as in dire need of being overhauled.
Under the employee permit system, a participating foreign worker has the option of switching workplaces a maximum of three times during his or her stay. However, the moves must be approved by the current employer, or there must be exceptional circumstances such as the withholding of wages or other employment law infractions, which makes exercising the option to move an unrealistic course of action for some.
As a result, human rights and foreign workers support groups allege that abuses such as forced labor and even withholding of wages and severance pay and other forms of prejudice are common practice.
The employment permit system has been mentioned by the UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which recommended the labor scheme be revised.
Supporters of a revision will hope that it can prevent future recurrences of last year’s tale involving a 24-year-old Cambodian worker employed at a sesame seed leaf grower.
The greenhouse where the 24 year-old Cambodian worker made her home. (Image: Yonhap)
The Cambodian worker had no other place to sleep but inside a greenhouse or shipping container and relied on an outdoor bathroom and a shower with no running hot water as her amenities. Despite these miserable living quarters, her employer deducted 200,000 won to 300,000 won from her monthly wages in the name of living expenses.
With other tales rising to the surface of foreign workers being given no choice but to sleep in a greenhouse throughout the winter and working around the clock with no days off, farmers would do well to embrace these individuals not merely as “the labor” but also as individuals that deserve to be treated with dignity.
Kevin Lee (kevinlee@koreabizwire.com)
