"‘Disposable’: How illegal temp work practices push migrants in Korea into risky jobs,"

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The dispatching of workers for production jobs has been a simmering issue for years at small manufacturing businesses operating in industrial complexes. Temporary work is a practice in which workers sign a labor contract with and receive wages from a temp agency while being overseen and directed by a different employer.

The Act on the Protection of Temporary Agency Workers prohibits the dispatching of workers for direct production at manufacturing companies and prescribes criminal punishments for violations.

But violations of these terms are rampant, as evidenced by the endless stream of job posts seeking people to work in manufacturing production one finds on job-search websites. Temporary agencies even operate commuter buses, which they use to transport temporary workers to the complexes...

Practices of “labor flexibility” — where the companies engaging temporary workers dismiss them when there is no work to be done — are closely associated with violations of worker rights. Common examples include nonpayment of wages, failure to enroll in the four major social insurance schemes, industrial accidents, and improper termination...

Then there’s the issue of workplace safety training and enrollment in industrial accident insurance. Some have analyzed that part of what made this most recent tragedy so deadly was that the temporary workers were unfamiliar with emergency evacuation routes and other workplace safety protocols. Moreover, Meicell, the temp agency that employed those working at the battery factory [see more here], had not enrolled its employees in industrial accident insurance...