Minister Kim Young-hoon of the Ministry of Employment and Labor (MOEL) said of Coupang, which faces allegations of concealing workers' industrial accidents, "I believe a special labor inspection is fully necessary."
At a Coupang hearing held at the National Assembly on the 30th, the Minister answered this way to a question from Ahn Ho-young of the Democratic Party of Korea, who, citing internal documents that included policies such as "a guide for handling medical expenses for accident victims" and "urging the use of corporate vehicles in the event of an accident," said, "We must get to the bottom of the alleged concealment of industrial accidents."
Ahn said, "(According to materials suspected to be internal Coupang documents) it says, 'Process the accident victim's hospital medical expenses as general processing' and 'Guide them to change it to general processing,'" adding, "General processing means the individual bears the full cost without any burden on the agency. If it is handled as an out-of-pocket expense, there will be no official record of industrial accident processing, so the scale or risk of industrial accidents will not be properly revealed."
Ahn also said, "In a significant number of cases, ambulances were not used in the event of an accident, and the person was transported to the hospital in a manager's vehicle or a company vehicle," adding, "In such cases, it appears the incident would not actually be processed as an industrial accident, and if this is how industrial accident processing is concealed, it is a violation of the Occupational Safety and Health Act."
In response, the Minister said, "We will conduct a full review of the Korea Workers' Compensation & Welfare Service (K-COMWEL), 119 (fire services), and the National Health Insurance Service."
Meanwhile, Coupang said in response to these allegations that it "encourages industrial accident processing." The Minister said of this, "Given that they even pursue administrative litigation for reasons unknown to Coupang after industrial accidents are approved, I doubt the statement is true," adding, "We will take stern action."
Meanwhile, at the hearing that day, a chat message was also mentioned alleging that in 2020, when Kim Beom-suk was Coupang chair and served as head of Coupang Korea, after worker Jang Deok-jun died, Kim instructed in the spirit of "Do not leave records that (Jang) worked hard." Noh Jong-myeon of the Democratic Party said, "Kim instructs staff to collect (evidence) that looks like he didn't work, such as going to the restroom or drinking water," adding, "If Coupang claims these materials cannot be verified as authentic, the Labor Ministry must get to the bottom of it."
The Minister said, "If true, this is judged to be obstruction of an investigation into the cause of a serious industrial accident," adding, "When a serious accident occurs, the labor minister can investigate, but if that was done, it is judged to have damaged the scene I am able to investigate."
Issues were also raised over how delivery workers handling Coupang deliveries are divided into three categories: ▲ "Coupang Friends" ("Cuchin") directly hired by Coupang ▲ "Cuchin" directly employed by Coupang Logistics Service (CLS), which was spun off from Coupang ▲ "Quick Flexers," special employment workers contracted with agencies that have consignment contracts. Park Hong-bae of the Democratic Party said, "They are hindering union formation, and if a union seems likely to be created, they spin off the company to make it smaller."
The Minister said, "The public will find it hard to understand why workers doing the same job must have three bizarre employment types," adding, "We have deep suspicions that this amounts to hostility toward labor unions." The Minister also said, "The Labor Ministry will push legislation for all people who work so that (people doing the same job are not discriminated against because of different employment types)."