Know Your Rights
Date: 12 March 2011
It’s no secret within the Korea blogosphere that your Uncle B, a corporate lawyer, doesn’t welcome phone calls and inquiries from English teachers. It’s not because I am a cold-hearted bastard—it’s because a top Korean commercial law firm serving Fortune 500 clients is not really the right tool for the job.
Rotten hagwon cram school operators, like most smaller Korean employers, are generally lawless snakes. And like any lower-order reptilian creature, hagwon owners really aren’t cowed by an attorney’s demand letter, as the law operates on a different level from the snakes. Snakes don’t read letters and aren’t persuaded by rhetoric. They do, however, respond to being struck with a sharp implement, like a hoe or rake or something.
That sharp implement is the District Labor Office of the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC). NLRC has two powers: (i) an administrative tribunal to adjudicate employment-related disputes, such as disputes over severance pay; and (ii) police power to conduct investigations and refer charges for criminal violations of the Labor Standards Act (LSA) to public prosecutors. While the snakes don’t fear some civil law firm’s call, they really are afraid of NLRC and the public prosecutors.
Unfortunately, as any Korean government agency, the NLRC is sometimes reluctant to do its job and needs a nudge. Plus, there is the question of exactly what the English teacher needs to illustrate, as a matter of law, to satisfy the NLRC investigators. And since this is Korea, one had better be able to write it all up in Korean. That’s a real burden, and a lot of English-teacher plaintiffs are discouraged by the burden of doing this alone.
Well, a few days ago I went to a restaurant frequented by expats, and picked up a copy of Eloquence magazine—kind of a “What’s On Seoul” for a market where global brands have a hard time. On page 40 of April’s Eloquence (maybe it’s been there all along, and I just don’t read the magazine often enough) I noticed a column entitled “Korean Law and You” by one Gerald Staruiala, a Canadian who apparently is working as a nonlawyer legal assistant in a nomu-sa (labor advocate) office called Kangnam Labor Law Firm.
I happen to know Kangnam Labor Law Firm and its principal nomu-sa Mr. Bong-Soo Jung. First of all, Mr. Jung has successfully represented, in labor-tribunal proceedings, at least two foreign lawyers I know of who have had severance-pay disputes with the Korean law firms at which they worked. Both lawyers spoke very highly of Mr. Jung, and the results he achieved for them as plaintiffs. He’ll definitely be getting my business if Hwang Mok Park tries to get funny with me in the case I were to leave this firm. (Point of clarification: There’s no plan, so far as I know, for me to be leaving or for HMP to cheat me out of severance pay.) So, foreign lawyers in Seoul use and recommend the guy.
Additionally, Mr. Jung has authored a bilingual English-Korean reference on employment and labor law. It’s a great reference, and has gotten better with each of the two editions I’ve seen. Some of the language is a little clumsy, of course, because Mr. Jung writes first in Korean and then translates to English—and there are very few good copy editors in this country.
And now, with a native English-speaking assistant to screen matters, Mr. Jung’s firm has even more ability to serve an English-speaking community of angry plaintiffs. There are over 40,000 of you just on E-2 visas alone—that must mean 10,000 of you have legal claims.
So Korea Law Blog’s advice to English teachers is this: Stop trying to “sue” your scummy hagwon owner with a $500/hour big law firm. Talk your case over with Gerald Staruiala, then pay Mr. Bong-Soo Jung his fee to file your complaint with the District Labor Office. This starts a process of administrative tribunal backed by criminal prosecution (i.e., the power of the State)—the most effective implement to deal with a snake.
This is not a solution to your criminal problems, landlord-tenant disputes, or your need to get divorced. Nomu-sa labor advocates are licensed to represent clients in administrative proceedings before the NLRC only—they cannot appear in court or meet with prosecutors on behalf of defendants. So if you have those other problems, don’t take advice from any nomu-sa, including the good Mr. Jung.
Where to Find Kangnam Labor Law Firm: Champs Elysee Center, 11th Floor (Seollung Station, Exit 1) - Tel (02) 539 0078.
