[Unofficial translation provided by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre]

“Call centre worker's depression recognised as workplace injury after suffering verbal abuse”, 11 November 2024

Ms. A, working at Hyundai Motor call centre has had her depression recognised as a workplace injury after enduring verbal abuse and foul language from customers, only to find that her employer failed to provide any protection. Despite the approval of her industrial accident claim, the outsourcing company has not taken any measures to prevent further health damage in accordance with occupational safety and health laws or its internal policies.

…The Disease Evaluation Committee concluded that "due to the nature of call centre work, it is likely that mental stress accumulated over an extended period during customer interactions. In particular, it was confirmed that in June 2022, A was repeatedly forced to apologise to a malicious customer over several hours," adding that "conflicts with the customer and subsequent issues with supervisors appear to have contributed to the onset of the symptoms. Therefore, the condition is recognised as being significantly related to her work."

…The employee’s company, Hyosung ITX, has policies that state, "The company will cooperate in matters necessary for the swift recovery of an employee’s health." Despite promoting a dedicated team to handle difficult customer complaints and offering legal support to victims of malicious customers, A received no assistance.

Inquiries made by Labor Today to Hyosung ITX’s HR department for comment went unanswered.