Principal Company Bullies Subcontractor Employees... Office Workers Say "Regulation Needed"

Workplace Gapjil 119 Conducts Survey of 1,000 Office Workers

There have been calls to amend the law to regulate acts of bullying by principal company employees against in-house subcontractor employees. There is an urgent need to establish a system to prevent abuse of power by principal company employees in relationships with subcontractors and to protect victims.

The civic group Workplace Gapjil 119 announced on the 11th that, according to a survey conducted by the polling agency Global Research from October 1 to 14 last year targeting 1,000 office workers, 87.1% of respondents expressed support for such measures.

Stress. (This photo is not directly related to the article.) Pixabay Pixabay

The current Labor Standards Act prohibits workplace bullying and imposes obligations on employers to investigate any reports of such bullying and to take appropriate measures to protect victims. If an employer disadvantages an employee for making a report, the employer may face up to three years in prison or a fine of up to 30 million won. If the employer directly bullies an employee, an administrative fine of up to 10 million won may be imposed.

However, these employer obligations apply only to their own employees and do not extend to employees of subcontractors or service providers. As a result, if a principal company employee bullies a subcontractor employee, even if the subcontractor employee reports it to the principal company, the principal company employer is not obligated to investigate.

Workplace Gapjil 119 emphasized, "Leaving the resolution of bullying issues arising from principal-subcontractor structures to the autonomy or morality of individual workplaces will not solve the problem. The scope of the workplace bullying regulations in the Labor Standards Act must be expanded to impose investigation and action obligations on principal company employers as well, and they must be held accountable if they fail to fulfill these obligations."

Hong Seokbin, a labor attorney at Workplace Gapjil 119, also pointed out, "This is a problem that could be called the 'outsourcing of bullying.' Even in situations where the victim from the subcontractor and the perpetrator from the principal company are clearly identified in the workplace, the application of the Labor Standards Act is excluded simply because it involves an outsourcing company, resulting in the principal company bearing no responsibility."

He added, "We need to consider expanding the application of the Labor Standards Act, which prohibits workplace bullying, to address bullying issues in principal-subcontractor structures, where there are also close work relationships."