{"id":81308,"date":"2024-06-26T03:16:04","date_gmt":"2024-06-26T03:16:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/26\/deadly-fire-exposes-harsh-conditions-migrant-workers-face-in-south-korea\/"},"modified":"2024-06-26T03:16:04","modified_gmt":"2024-06-26T03:16:04","slug":"deadly-fire-exposes-harsh-conditions-migrant-workers-face-in-south-korea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/26\/deadly-fire-exposes-harsh-conditions-migrant-workers-face-in-south-korea\/","title":{"rendered":"Deadly Fire Exposes Harsh Conditions Migrant Workers Face in South Korea"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/06\/25\/multimedia\/25skorea-fire-03-fqkl\/25skorea-fire-03-fqkl-facebookJumbo.jpg?fit=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Deadly Fire Exposes Harsh Conditions Migrant Workers Face in South Korea\" title=\"Deadly Fire Exposes Harsh Conditions Migrant Workers Face in South Korea\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">They were descendants of Koreans who \u200bmoved to Northeast China\u200b, fleeing Japan\u2019s brutal colonial rule \u200bin the early 20th century. In a twist of history,\u200b many like them have come to South Korea in recent decades,\u200b looking for better-paying jobs in their forebears\u2019 homeland, \u200bnow one of the world\u2019s richest countries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">For more than a dozen of them, their Korean dream came to a horrifying end on Monday, when a toxic inferno engulfed a lithium-battery factory where they had found work. The 23 laborers killed\u200b in the plant in Hwaseong, a city south of Seoul, included 12 women and five men from China, ranging in age from 23 to 48, officials said. Most were ethnic Koreans.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The disaster drew new attention to the stark \u200brealities faced here by migrant workers, from China and from elsewhere. South Korea, with its <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/08\/24\/world\/asia\/south-korea-fertility-rate.html?searchResultPosition=8\" title=\"\">shrinking population<\/a>, has been <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/03\/02\/world\/asia\/south-korea-foreign-workers.html\" title=\"\">rapidly increasing<\/a> the number of workers it accepts from abroad to \u200btoil at the lowest rung of \u200bits labor market. They do the so-called 3-D \u200bjobs \u2014 dirty, difficult and dangerous \u200b\u2014 that locals shun.\u200b<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Such work can be especially deadly in South Korea, which has <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/fingfx.thomsonreuters.com\/gfx\/editorcharts\/SOUTHKOREA-SAFETY\/0H001QXE3909\/index.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">one of the highest workplace fatality rates<\/a> in the developed world. Foreign workers are <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/scienceon.kisti.re.kr\/commons\/util\/originalView.do?cn=JAKO202324172279131&amp;dbt=JAKO&amp;koi=KISTI1.1003%2FJNL.JAKO202324172279131&amp;utm_source=pocket_saves\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">nearly three times<\/a> as likely as the average South Korean to die in a work-related accident, according to a recent study.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThese ethnic Koreans from China are a byproduct of Korea\u2019s painful history,\u201d said Samuel Wu, head of the Asan Migrant Workers Center near Seoul. \u201cThey come to South Korea with hopes for a better life for them and their children. But they often end up with discrimination and jobs without proper safety protection.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The fire in Hwaseong offers a glimpse of the problem.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">South Korea is home to major producers of lithium batteries, which power smartphones, electric vehicles and many other products. But its regulations still largely treat lithium as an environmental concern, not as a potential fire hazard, which leaves loopholes in the safety standards governing factories that handle the material, said Lee Yong-jae, a professor of fire protection at Kyungmin University north of Seoul.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The factory in Hwaseong was operated by Aricell, a small company that supplies batteries for South Korea\u2019s military and other customers. Generally speaking, small companies in the chemical and battery industries tend to have worse safety records than large ones, industry experts say.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cHaving fatalities in these types of fires is rare,\u201d said Emma Sutcliffe, project director at EV FireSafe in Melbourne, Australia, which tracks battery fires.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Sutcliffe and other experts said that battery production facilities are typically limited to one floor, to make them easier to evacuate in an emergency, and separated from any other offices or buildings. At Aricell\u2019s Building No. 3, workers packaged batteries for delivery on the second floor, where the fire broke out \u2014 just above where they were manufactured.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Like other small manufacturers in South Korea, Aricell relied heavily on migrant workers to cut costs. Working on short-term temporary contracts, such workers seldom receive adequate safety training or work long enough in a single factory to become familiar with its structural features, like emergency exits, experts said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The walls of Building No. 3 were built with thin metal plates with plastic insulation \u2014 highly vulnerable to fire \u2014 in between them, Mr. Lee said. The factory also kept combustible materials near an exit door of the second floor, another safety lapse, fire department officials said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Once lithium batteries catch fire, they become so hot inside that they are very hard to put out. At Aricell, the fire started when a battery near the exit door began emitting white smoke, according to images from an internal security camera that were cited in a report by the fire department. Within 37 seconds, a series of batteries began exploding with white-orange flames. A few seconds later, the floor was completely filled with thick, toxic smoke.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Almost all of the dead were found clustered together near the wall opposite the exit door. That wall had no exit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u200bThe bodies were so badly burned that they were assigned numbers until DNA testing, and family members arriving from China, could help establish their identities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe body was charred black, and the person\u2019s clothes were melted to the skin,\u201d \u200bsaid Lee Geon-ho, an ambulance driver, \u200bafter bringing one of the victims to a funeral home. \u201cYou couldn\u2019t tell who it was.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Park Sun-gwan, the head of Aricell, apologized for the deaths on Tuesday. But he denied that his factory lacked safety measures, adding that it had trained its workers in what to do in an emergency. The police said that they planned to question Mr. Park and other company officials over possible criminal charges of violating laws on industrial safety.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Human rights groups have long protested the working conditions at many small South Korean farms and factories, most of which could not operate without workers from poorer countries like Vietnam, Cambodia, Nepal, the Philippines and Bangladesh. But for many people in those countries, and among the estimated two million ethnic Koreans in China, the chance to make far more money outweighs the dangers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThree days\u2019 income is equivalent to a month\u2019s work in my hometown\u200b,\u201d said Li Fugui, 33, a Korean Chinese \u200bcarpenter from \u200bthe northeast Chinese province of Heilongjiang\u200b.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He said he planned to work in South Korea for two more years. \u201cI\u2019ll save some money and go back to my hometown\u200b,\u201d he said. \u201cIt will be enough for the rest of my life.\u200b\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Because ethnic Korean Chinese, known as \u201cdongpo,\u201d or \u201cpeople from the same womb,\u201d understand the language and culture, many managers in South Korea prefer to hire them. But not everyone welcomes them. Labor unions complain that they take jobs from South Koreans and drive down wages, and many think of them as low-skilled workers who speak Korean with a pronounced accent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThey are treated as second- and third-class citizens of South Korea,\u201d said Park Chun Ung, a Christian pastor who has campaigned for the rights of migrant workers, including ethnic Koreans.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Kim Dal-sung, a Methodist pastor who also lobbies for migrant workers, partly blames the South Korean government for their dangerous work conditions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Two years ago, the country enacted a law under which executives for companies that hire temporary workers can be sent to jail if there is a fatal accident involving negligence. But until this year, the law was not applied to factories that hired fewer than 50 workers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Xu Guo Li, 58, an ethnic Korean who has run a supermarket in Hwaseong for five years after immigrating from China in 2008, said that the recent weak economy had spurred many Chinese to want to work in factories like Aricell\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But she said she was still surprised that foreign workers at the battery plant outnumbered the Korean ones.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cEveryone wonders why everyone\u2019s foreign,\u201d she said. \u201cWhy don\u2019t Koreans work there?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The government\u2019s policies give migrant workers little say in choosing or changing employers, which advocates say leaves them vulnerable to predatory bosses, discrimination and abuse. They often need an employer\u2019s permission to switch jobs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cUnder such a system, they can hardly complain about unsafe working conditions,\u201d Mr. Kim said. \u201cThe system helps encourage workplace accidents.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-798hid etfikam0\">Reporting was contributed by <!-- -->John Yoon<!-- --> from Hwaseong, South Korea, <!-- -->Keith Bradsher<!-- --> from Shanghai, <!-- -->River Akira Davis<!-- --> from Tokyo and <!-- -->Yan Zhuang<!-- --> from Seoul. <!-- -->Joy Dong<!-- --> and <!-- -->Li You<!-- --> contributed research.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/06\/25\/world\/asia\/south-korea-lithium-battery-fire.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>They were descendants of Koreans who \u200bmoved to Northeast China\u200b, fleeing Japan\u2019s brutal colonial rule \u200bin the early 20th century. In a twist of history,\u200b many like them have come to South Korea in recent decades,\u200b looking for better-paying jobs in their forebears\u2019 homeland, \u200bnow one of the world\u2019s richest countries. For more than a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81309,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/06\/25\/multimedia\/25skorea-fire-03-fqkl\/25skorea-fire-03-fqkl-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4795,11100,36743,2086,80,1574,1359,5295,6967,2252],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81308"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81308"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81310,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81308\/revisions\/81310"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}