South Korea’s Yonsei students under fire for suing underpaid cleaners over ‘noisy’ protests
- Cleaners and security workers at the prestigious Seoul university have been fighting for more money and better working conditions for months
- Three students have sued them, saying the lunchtime protests have disturbed their studies and caused mental ‘distress’, in a move that has attracted criticism
Students at an elite South Korean university who filed a lawsuit over “noisy” labour protests have found themselves under attack for their perceived lack of empathy for the rights of the less privileged.
In May, three students at Seoul’s private Yonsei University sued the Korean Public Service and Transport Workers’ Union’s (KPTU) branch president at Yonsei and the team’s vice-president for allegedly holding “illegal and unregistered protests that generated stress and invaded one’s right to learn for over a month”. The move quickly attracted backlash.
As the controversy on the institution’s Sinchon campus grows, increasing numbers of people are expressing support for its workers, who are dealing with heavier workloads due to lay-offs and other unfavourable conditions, while the wealthy university is coming under fire for not taking steps to improve the situation.
The ongoing protests, which began in March after eight months of negotiations with the leading educational institution led nowhere, have demanded basic rights including a 440 won (US$0.34) rise in the hourly wage to match the national minimum wage. The workers also want access to showers during very hot weather.
“But four months of protesting during our lunchtime have got us nowhere,” said Kim Hyun-Ok, a cleaner and the head of KPTU’s university team.
She said she “wasn’t disappointed” in the three students who filed lawsuits. “We unfortunately disturbed the students who were studying, but we also needed to raise our voices as the school didn’t take care of us. We don’t want to be looked on as a group that merely protests. We consider ourselves as a group that needs to be protected and provided for as we don’t have the means to ourselves.”
Across May and June, the three students filed one criminal and three separate civil lawsuits asking for a combined 6,386,000 won (US$5,000) in compensation for “tuition, mental damages and psychiatry treatment sessions”.
