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Wed, August 23, 2017 | 16:58

National > Labor & environment >

'STX workers died of suffocation'

The Korea Coast Guard has confirmed suffocation as the cause of death of the victims of Sunday’s shipyard explosion in Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province. According to Coast Guard investigators, Tuesday, the four employees of STX Offshore and Shipbuilding’s subcontractor suffocated to death because they were not wearing supplied air respirators - equipment that provides fres...

Labor & environment | 2017-08-23 16:38

Lotte Hi-Mart president attacked over alleged worker abuse

The president of Lotte Hi-Mart is under fire for verbally abusing an employee over the color of the worker’s hair when he was Lotte World president in 2012. According to reports on Wednesday, Lee Dong-woo had criticized the employee, Kang Dong-seok, for not dyeing his white hair. “Is having white hair something to brag about?” Lee said in an audio file Kang recorded and sent ...

Labor & environment | 2017-08-23 16:11

Childcare leave pay to double in September

From September, mothers and fathers on childcare leave will see their leave pay double in the first three months. According to the revised ordinance to the Employment Insurance Act which was approved by a Cabinet meeting Monday, workers taking childcare leave starting in September will be able to receive 80 percent of their regular wages for the first three months. Currently,...

Labor & environment | 2017-08-21 17:04

Investigation into STX shipyard explosion begins

Authorities on Monday launched an investigation into an explosion at a shipyard in Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province, which killed four workers a day earlier. A team of officials from the South Regional Headquarters of the Korea Coast Guard and the Coast Guard in Changwon inspected the residual oil tank inside a 74,000-ton vessel of STX Offshore & Shipbuilding, along with t...

Labor & environment | 2017-08-21 17:01

'It's demanding work but I know I'm needed'

Sunita Bandey, 39, has run a community center over the past seven years in Chungju, North Chungcheong Province, to help Nepalese migrant workers in Korea. For the nearly 2,000 people from her home country living in the province, the center run by her and her husband is where they can get the most help in a country that is known to mistreat migrant workers. “Many people from m...

Labor & environment | 2017-08-18 17:31

Egg scandal draws attention to the way poultry is raised

Amid a fast-developing egg contamination scandal in Korea, experts and animal rights activists argued the root cause is factory chicken farming, which is common here. All the eggs containing insecticide chemicals were produced at farms with huge numbers of chickens being raised in limited spaces. “Because there are so many chickens in such a small space, more must have been e...

Labor & environment | 2017-08-18 17:16

Moon defends Shin-Kori reactor committee

President Moon Jae-in on Thursday defended a committee gathering public opinion on the construction of reactors 5 and 6 at Shin-Kori Nuclear Power Plant in Ulsan, South Gyeongsang Province. “My original plan was to entirely scrap the construction,” Moon said at a press conference in Cheong Wa Dae marking 100 days since he took office. “But after considering the costs of halting construction, I decided the decision would be made based on public opinion.” The initial plan to scrap the construction of the reactors was aligned with Moon’s vision to phase out nuclear energy in favor of safer rene...

Labor & environment | 2017-08-17 16:47

Moon rules out possibility of war

President's labor reform hits snag

Incheon International Airport became a symbolic place for the Moon Jae-in administration’s labor reform when he visited there on May 12 and pledged to open an “era of zero irregular jobs in the public sector.” In response, Incheon International Airport Corp. (IIAC) CEO Chung Il-young promised to turn all of its irregular jobs into regular ones by the end of this year. Over th...

Labor & environment | 2017-08-16 16:59

Vacation season a nightmare for airport cleaners

When vacation season arrives, airports are crowded with travelers fully loaded with holiday spirit. But not everybody is happy. For airport cleaners, it’s time to confront an endless cycle of mopping, vacuuming and trash picking. The nightmare is more evident for cleaners at Incheon International Airport, South Korea’s biggest. During the summer vacation season, their daily w...

Labor & environment | 2017-08-15 16:22

Faulty air analysis fails China-Korea links on fine dust

While China and Korea experience some of the world’s worst air pollution, they are yet to develop credible technological methods to monitor and analyze what is in the harmful particulates. Scientists and policymakers from the two countries have met over the issue since the early 2000s. But without precise readings on the pollutants - from total suspended particles such as fin...

Labor & environment | 2017-08-13 18:27

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