It’s not cheap labor, it’s human.
I’m’Sokheng’ with the same name as working at the Achae Farm
Contract 7 hours, actually 11 hours work
“Quickly” “not the rest”
Like a cow
I got a bottle for 22 million won in arrears.
“Thank you for paying the new boss on time”
Sim Sok-Heng (25), a migrant worker from Cambodia, is holding a letter to his parents at a lodging in Chungju, Chungbuk on the 22nd of last month. Reporter Lee Han-ho
A letter to parents
Hello to both father and mother.
My second daughter is inside. I am living well and healthy every day. The weather in Korea is too cold compared to Cambodia. But I can work every day. The boss of the workplace where I first came to Korea and worked didn’t pay me properly. It was really hard to think of a time when I stopped by the bank every month and put a bankbook in an ATM. I was sick, but I couldn’t go to the hospital because I didn’t have money. Fortunately, I changed jobs, and the new boss I met was good because he paid me regularly. So father, mother, don’t worry about me. In a few years, I will be back to Cambodia. I’m working hard. I am making as much money as possible by striving hard for my beloved brothers and parents. Finally, I am looking forward to the day when I go back to Cambodia and meet my father, mother and sister and two younger brothers happily. Hope you have luck. Good luck to all family members.
-The youngest daughter continues-
The name was the same, so it wasn’t even more like Nam’s. When I was 18 degrees below zero, thinking of my hometown 3,500km away in the cold, I felt sorry and scared that I might have ended my life at Pocheon Green House.
My name is Sok Heng Sim (25). I’ve never met him, but he has the same name as Nuon Sokheng, who was his six-year-old older sister. After coming to Korea in June 2018, there was news that about 20 Cambodian migrant workers with non-professional employment (E-9) like me have become immigrants. The reason why the news of Sokheng’s sister’s death, which I encountered on the Facebook Cambodia community on December 20 last year, felt heavier was because she had the same name as me.
She made herself a migrant worker for her younger siblings
My Korean dream has not yet faded in the midst of sorrow and frustration. It is my hope to see two younger brothers in Cambodia wearing bachelor caps. I was born in Cambodia as the second daughter of two sons and two daughters under my parents who work on rice fields and fields, and I took charge of housekeeping. My older sister is married and has two nephews, so it is tight to support her younger brothers’ tuition. The reason I chose the life of an E-9 migrant worker as a representative of my family was to support my younger siblings’ tuition. One of my Korean dream bucket lists is to return to my hometown and open a small shop selling daily necessities, even after applying for tuition and if I have extra money.
I prepared for the Korean language test in my hometown for a year to come to Korea. Fortunately, I got a good score on the Employment Permit System Korean Proficiency Test (EPS-TOPIK), passed the test, and applied for the agriculture and livestock industry (E-9-3). Although the wages are small compared to the manufacturing industry, I thought that my experience of helping with my parents’ farming could make a good impression on Korean farmers. It is said that there were 5 Cambodian women on the farm of Sokheng, who died in Pocheon. Currently, all of the workers in my workplace are foreigners, of which more than 80% are women.
An image of a farm in Chungju, Chungbuk, where Sokheng, a migrant worker from Cambodia, is currently working. From the left of the photo, squeeze (28) Yeikni (32) Sokheng (25) Thiera (25) Boray (32) Sreirai (25) Reporter Lee Han-ho
The first business site was a vegetable farm in Chungju, Chungbuk. My job was to grow and harvest lettuce and tomatoes in 10 green house. In addition to me, two migrant workers were already working on this farm. Perhaps he was short of working hands, and he looked at me and sighed of relief.
Every day, overtime work contracts are bleak
As soon as I started working, I knew what the sighs of the seniors meant. The contents of the labor contract that the boss gave me to sign and the actual environment were completely different. The contract stated that I was guaranteed to work from 7 am to 4 pm and have four days off a month, but in reality I worked an average of 10 hours and 30 minutes a day from 6:30 am to 6 pm. There were only two days off. Even though the contents of the contract were different, my disappointment grew when I saw the confident boss.
That’s how I worked every day for two years from June 28, 2018 to June 7, 2020, suffering from overtime. Of course, some of the contracts have been kept by the boss thoroughly. They paid only the basic wages listed in the labor contract without excess allowance and holiday allowance, and received accommodation and board expenses for providing green house accommodation and raw rice.
On the 22nd of last month, Yeik Ni, 32, a migrant worker from Cambodia working in a green house in Chungju, Chungbuk. I work all day with my heels raised to pick lettuce quickly. Reporter Kim Young-hoon
We are closest to the earth, but we cannot reach it. Because to pick 30 boxes of lettuce a day, you have to work in a squatting position with your heels up all day.
Cambodian E-9 migrant worker working at a vegetable farm in Chungju, Chungbuk
The first thing that begins at 6:30 a.m. 30 minutes earlier than the labor contract is to peel off the plastic covering to protect the crops from the dew at night. In particular, when it comes to cold weather, the dew-bearing vinyl is heavy, so it wasn’t difficult to peel it off with only women without male workers. If you take off all the vinyl in 10 green houses like that, you are exhausted as if you’ve already finished the day, but from then on, work begins in earnest. Tomatoes are harvested, transferred and carried over and over again. I was surprised by the voice of the boss shouting’quickly’, and when I picked the unripe tomatoes, the fire spirit often fell.
Although the standard labor contract is listed as the agricultural and livestock industry, the reality is that migrant workers are packing plastic bags at factories. However, even though these workers did not engage in agriculture-related work, according to Article 63 of the Labor Standards Act, working hours, breaks, and holidays were excluded. Photo = Provided by Kim Lee-chan, the representative of’Early People’s Stop’
Working as a factory worker on the trick of the employer
My friend’s life as a migrant worker I had known in Cambodia was even more unusual. My friend came to Korea after knowing that he was growing house crops in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, but he actually worked at a factory that packs leafy vegetables such as leafy vegetables. The standard labor contract for agriculture stated that he was working on a farm, but his friend worked in a packaging factory an hour away by car from the farm. Korean employees in the factory hired less than 5 migrant workers as farm owners, and then more than 30 people were gathered to work in the factory. In the end, the friend was registered as an agricultural and livestock industry on paper, but in reality, it means that he worked in the manufacturing industry.
Why is that? It is said that the agricultural and livestock industry has more advantages for Korean business owners than the manufacturing industry. Since there are no restrictions on working hours and holidays according to Article 63 of the Labor Standards Act, it is said that long-term labor can be legally allowed. Foreign agricultural and livestock workers pay twice as much insurance premiums as those in the manufacturing industry, but they do not have time to go to the hospital even if they are sick, and cannot go without permission from the farmer.
A letter written by 12 migrant workers from rural areas in Nepal, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar and Vietnam. I can’t write all the details of the letter, but they said that while living as migrant workers in Korea, their health was damaged by poor housing facilities and working conditions.
Borrowing another business place under the name of Poomat
The first culture I learned in Korea was’Poomati’. In the cold season of farming, the boss took the colleagues he worked with to the lettuce and tomato farm run by the boss’s younger brother to work. Sometimes I worked at a pepper farm run by my boss’s friend. When asked, “Why should I work at another business site?”, the boss only returned, saying, “Because it is the culture of the farm village, don’t talk to me.” When I looked up’Poom-A-i’ in the dictionary, it was said that it was a way to support and repay each other with hard work. But why do we just give and receive nothing? Is it because they see us as beings that lend us like cows or horses that we have to work around various business sites for no cost?
The employment permit system in Korea has even changed the traditional culture of Cambodia. Last winter, I briefly returned to my hometown, Cambodia, to marry a man I met six years ago. Originally in Cambodia, it is a tradition to marry on a date set by a fortune teller. However, in order to return to my home country, I had to have the permission of the Korean boss, so I was a fortune teller. The boss said, “Go back to the farming season when there is no shortage of work”, so I postponed the scheduled wedding date and went to get married in time for the farming season. This is the reason why Cambodian rural migrant workers like me get married a lot in winter.
Sok Heng (25) received his health insurance premium payment confirmation from Chungju National Health Insurance Corporation on the 22nd of last month and his monthly salary bankbook. Health insurance premiums were arrears because there was no balance in the bankbook due to the employer’s wage arrears. Reporter Kim Young-hoon
22 million won arrears, insurance premium arrears and illness
It took a decisive moment to inform the boss of injustice and to claim his rights. From February to June of last year, the boss did not even pay the basic wages stated in the labor contract. No wages were paid for extra hours worked and extra hours worked on holidays. There is no money in the bankbook, and I am in arrears of paying my health insurance premiums to pass tuition fees to my younger siblings. Even if I asked the boss for money every day, the boss repeatedly said, “If you run away, you will become an illegal alien. If you want to go, go.” The hard work and stress ended up having four months. My toothache was so severe that I couldn’t sleep for a few days, so I assessed my boss and went to the hospital, and the result of the diagnosis was’acute appendicitis’. I even got sick, so I realized that waiting tirelessly to live is not the answer.
While inquiring to get back wages, I found out that migrant workers are obligated to pay health insurance premiums and income tax, but they don’t have much right to receive as workers. This is because it is not mandatory to subscribe to industrial accident insurance in rural areas (workplaces with fewer than 5 employees). If you are enrolled in industrial accident insurance, you can apply to the Korea Labor Welfare Corporation to receive overdue wages and severance pay, but most migrant workers in rural areas like me were exceptions. With the help of civic groups representing migrant workers, I barely filed a petition with the Labor Office for a wage of 21.9 million won, equivalent to a year and a half. I didn’t know it would be so difficult to get paid for work properly.
An image of a farm in Chungju, Chungbuk, where Sok-Heng, 25, a migrant worker from Cambodia works. Reporter Lee Han-ho
Sokheng’s dream to protect the right to health and labor
Although my body and mind were worn out by being beaten and ripped off in Korea for over three years, I still dream of a Korean dream and aim to become a sincere worker. Although some migrant workers are not treated as human beings by rural business owners, not everyone treats us like machines. I moved to a nearby vegetable farm due to the previous boss’s overdue payment, but the new boss pays the wages on time, and when sick, he gets in his car and goes to the hospital with him. Thanks to these people, the Korean Dream is currently ongoing for me.
Finally, if there is one wish, I hope that the fate of migrant workers will not change according to the good will of the farmer. The lives of Nuon Sokheng in Pocheon, who passed away miserably in a green house, and Sookheng Shim, who works at a vegetable farm in Chungju, should be different depending on who they meet. We pray that the minimum fences will be provided to protect the right to health and labor, so that migrant workers will not shed tears. I still love Korea.
※ This article was reorganized in the form of a letter addressed to Koreans based on the contents covered by Mr. Sok-Heng Sim (25).
Younghoon Kim reporter [email protected]
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