EU Investigating Forced N. Korean Labor

Update:   More at the Daily NK.  

You may recall my previous post (and R. Elgin’s) about the use of female North Korean slave laborers to stitch upholstery for German luxury sedans, which certainly brings back a few memories about the golden age of German business ethics.  It looks like that source of income will soon come to an end, as the European Parliament is now investigating the conditions under which North Koreans labor in the Czech Republic and Poland.  It expects to complete its investigation by next spring.

It is estimated that the number of workers that the North Korean government sent to overseas countries such as the Czech Republic, Poland, Russia, the Middle East, and Africa is anywhere from 10,000 to 15,000. Currently, 400 North Korean workers, mostly women, are staying in the Czech Republic and working in sewing factories in the suburbs of Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic.

Their monthly salaries are well above the country’s minimum wage of about 285,000 won. However, the European Parliament estimated that a large part of their salaries is deposited into a collective bank account controlled by the North Korean government. In addition to this, the North Korean government takes away more of workers’ salaries by forcing them to buy propaganda videos produced by the government.

That’s a novel technique.

The Mainichi Daily also covered the case of one North Korean man who is working for a shipbuilding company located in Gdansk in the northern part of Poland. The story reported that North Korean workers’ salaries goes to the bank account of a North Korea’s state enterprise first, and in the end only 30 or 40 percent of it is left in the hands of workers.

A source from a company that arranges North Korean workers to go to factories in Poland said, “They get paid 4,000 Zloty, or about 1.3 million won, a month, which is sent to the bank account in Poland of a North Korea state enterprise, and workers are only receiving 400,000 or 500,000 won a month.

There are two ways of looking at that, as I mentioned previously.  The workers have no freedom of choice, and their wages and working conditions are certainly much worse than they are for Europeans.  At the same time, they’re much, much better than in North Korea.

István Szent-Iványi, vice-chairman of the delegation for relations with the Korean Peninsula in the European Parliament, said, “North Korean workers are treated like slaves now because they are working under inhuman conditions and thoroughly monitored by their government.

However, one senior North Korean worker (aged 45) at a shipbuilding company in Gdansk said, “We are well fed now and enjoy a glass of beer every day. Every day seems to me like my birthday and the North Korean Embassy in Warsaw even delivers kimchi to us.

How considerate of North Korea to feed its workers.  On one hand, this system seems to feed and clothe a select few workers adequately, and to give them a real glimpse of liberal Europe.  But if there’s an operational definition of slavery, it’s when they pay you in food and alcohol.  On balance, what’s really the most wrong with this is the system it helps to support.