Sick Days In Korea: Not A Novel Idea

 I've been confused lately by news stories such as this one in the Korea Times. In it writer Lee Hyo Jin states that "Korea is one of the only OECD countries that does not guarantee paid sick leave by law." And this article in the Korea Herald that states, "Currently, Korean law does not guarantee sick leave, much less paid sick leave, during infectious disease outbreaks."  Now take a look at this article from hani.co.kr. It states that over 43% of people surveyed were unable to freely use their annual leave when they became sick. Most are afraid to have their pay docked, which absolutely IS illegal according to the Labor Standards Act of Korea. It goes on to say that Korea still lacks proper legal mechanisms such as sick leave and points out that that very same Labor Standards Act contains no such provisions. I'm feeling like Lt. Daniel Kaffee in A Few Good Men when the judge says, "I don't understand, you're offering exhibits of a flight that did not exist?" then Kaffee says, "Oh we believe it did, your honour." 

You see kids, there was a time in Korea when the Koreans were able to run their country much closer to the way they wanted to run it. It was called 1997. It had been around 50 years since the US and some other allies had helped set them up to turn Korea into a country deserving of a seat at the table in that money moving, vulture capitalistic organization so euphemistically called one of "economic co-operation and development." And earn that seat they DID! Their tactics, while not brilliant, took Korea from utter devastation and economic ruin in 1953 after the Korean war to a thriving economy in '97. It is sometimes redundantly called the "Miracle on the Hangang River." 

Before 1997 jobs were plentiful in Korea. Even uneducated folks could get stable jobs that were almost impossible to get fired from. I don't need to tell you what happened. The richer Korea got, the greedier the few at the top became (government and chaebols) and before too long that brotherhood and cooperation to work together and make the country strong was highjacked by the greedy few who overextended themselves and fucked things up for everybody. See? Not brilliant. And we all know what happens when the rich few fuck things up for everybody - everybody but the rich few have to unfuck the things they fucked up for everybody. And that, in a dismissive nutshell, was yer IMF Crisis. 

I was here in '97 and I saw the citizens of Korea melting down tons of their personal gold items (about 227 tons to be precise) as one of the "austerity measures" attached to the IMF loans. They were still caught up in a frenzy of patriotic brotherhood that working hard and succeeding together can lead to. And this was promptly taken as naïve innocence ripe for exploitation by the degenerate gambler plutocracy that inexplicably still commanded the support of the people. Other "austerity measures" were called for by the IMF, which is essentially the World Bank, which is essentially the US. Debt imperialism is what we're talking about here. They're basically the international capital mafia. Here's a video that explains it well:

So in essence, what happened in 1997 was Korea being forced to choose whether it wanted to get in line with IMF/World Bank policy and have a seat at the big boys' table, or be one of their bitch countries. Korea chose the former, but with that choice came some changes to banking, financial systems, accounting practices, and... you guessed it... labour standards. 

I was working at Chonnam University in the early 2000's and management had been systematically stealing overtime pay from every teacher. We brought it up at a meeting and, in typical Korean crook fashion, caught red-handed they got angry at US and promised to make our lives difficult for our insolence and ungratefulness. They began making us teach on national holidays and/or do make-up classes and making us do make-up classes for sickness and/or come into work sick. A bunch of us got to work checking to see if we had any legal recourse and the answer turned out to be... yes and no. I distinctly remember contacting a labour lawyer by email and explaining what was going on and he wrote me some lengthy replies on Korean legal history and such that cleared things up for us all. I can't remember all of it, but he said that there were indeed laws prohibiting the above behaviors by any employer and told me the Korean word for sick leave (apeun nal I think) but told me that if I want to continue working in Korea, I should never EVER utter that word or any equivalent. It's like saying Voldemort! So needless to say, we had virtually no chance of arguing at the labour board of Korea. We might have even been black-listed if we'd tried.

I can't remember if he said it was since 1997 that Koreans had started getting militant about not taking sick days but I think it was. As all of the above articles point out, Koreans still do take sick days. Almost half of Koreans! How do they manage that if they're not legally mandated in this country where they're considered tantamount to treason? It's most likely the old Koreans who know that it's still the law and aren't buying into the mythology that sick days are not part of Korea law. 

At any rate, the story has a happy ending. A representative from the labour board of Korea came to Chonnam University, probably concerned about being contacted by SEVERAL of us teachers, and told the offending assholes to knock it off. Forcing people to work on national holidays, while sick, or do make-up classes for either, was, it turned out, even illegal in Korea. So they immediately stopped.

As an aside, people working while sick is one of the reasons for the positive association between masks and heroic citizens in Korea. That and protestors who wore them. This socially cemented stigma against taking sick days has probably saved employers mountains of money in paid sick leave too. Maybe enough to make a large dent in that IMF loan Korea got in '97? And don't kid yourself, employers regularly force employees to work while sick or do make-up hours, my current company not excluded. It is also part of the reason mask mandates have long since been lifted and Koreans STILL patriotically wear them even though they don't have to.

What the hell bro? No, honetly... 

Am I wrong, or are they currently trying to act like they are inventing the sick day in Korea? I mean, all it would have taken is an employee or two with some balls to tell the employer they're not coming into work and they can go fuck themselves. Or even just ask one of the old, most likely senior employees how THEY get away with taking sick days. Has neither happened in the last 26 years?

Not to toot my own horn but, go to 1:11 in the following vid:

Hwa - a - fucking - HWAAANNHH! I've stood up to Korean employers and got what I demanded. It doesn't take a worldwide pandemic to change them. I told the management at Carrot that sending the teachers from Icheon to Seoul to write lessons was a waste of everybody's time and we'd get more lessons written in less time if we could stay home. I was right, we stayed home, got more done in less time, management was happy and the teachers were happy. They still do it that way. I told management at Gongju Dae it was a waste of time having me sitting in my office desk-warming when I had 6 hours off. They eventually relented. Now I don't work for either of those jobs any more... and if Koreans wanted to stand up for themselves, they might have to change jobs too, but it could be done. 

I guess this is another thing done the hard way in Korea.

Anyway, it's long overdue and I'm happy Korean bosses are smartening up. The reason for not allowing sick days and all the desk warming and time wasting at work done in Korea is not as dignified as all the patriotic mumbo jumbo you might get if you ask an employer for the reasons why they are the way they are. The real reason is not a brain teaser either. They're just childishly untrusting of their workers and have been allowed to be so. I guess they reckon everybody will ask to work from home and drink soju all day, then call in sick the next day all on the company dime. The pandemic taught them different and adjustments are being made. FINALLY. So that's a good thing. But it's incredible that it had to come to this!

Oh, by the way, if you want to research the existence of sick day laws in Korea, they've been blocked very well. It wasn't as hard back in the 2000's as it is today to find them. But I have read the Labor Standards Act of Korea and they're not in there. For some, that might lead you to the belief that there ARE none because surely that's where they'd be, no? For a guy like me, the absence is almost evidence of their existence. They take the fewest sick days and have among the lowest productivity in OECD countries. Those stats you can find. They're starting to realize these two things might be related. Not only that, but maybe walking around the office with THE PLAGUE, mask or not, is a bad idea. Do you suppose optics has anything to do with this? Maybe acting like it was the law instead of we were just forcing people to work sick, spread sickness, and be less productive cuz we wanted more money looks better. What do ya reckon?

Now if we can get them to stop requiring a doctor's note. If I'm sick, I don't wanna go anywhere including the doctor's office. Don't make me go out and endanger others to placate you and your juvenile trust issues. But maybe I'm overreaching here.