By It appears some North Korean workers must not be getting paid on time, which means Kim Jong-il isn’t getting paid on time:
North Korean authorities announced Wednesday that companies in the inter-Korean Gaeseong Industrial Complex that delay wage payments to their employees will be subject to sanctions.
A one-month delay will result in a maximum two-thousand-dollar fine and a two-month delay will bring about a ten-day suspension of business operations.
Authorities have also demanded an additional allowance for employees who work 24 hours or more straight.
North Korea notified South Korea’s Unification Ministry and the association of companies operating in Gaeseong of the new labor regulations last month. [KBS Global]
If employees are working 24 hours straight at the Kaesong Complex how could they possibly be able to safely manufacture the products they make there?
Here is what I found most interesting in the article:
The association has urged Pyongyang to withdraw its demands. It also wants to pay the wages in the South Korean currency due to the strong dollar.
I had not realized that the Korean companies operating in Kaesong were paying off the regime with US dollars. It would make sense then that these companies are having cash flow problems if their payments to the North Koreans are all in dollars and not won considering the exchange rate now.
2:01 am on March 5th, 2009 1
The North Koreans are learning how their Southern Cousins like to treat workers in 3rd world countries. And the South Koreans are showing exactly how much love they have for their own race.
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March 5th, 2009 at 2:12 am
Burma Bob you are showing great ignorance. The South Koreans can get much cheaper, better educated and dependable labor in China and India not to mention a dozen other places. Kaesong is a SK charity scheme. The South Koreans built the plants, the power, the water, the dorms…everything. The north Koreans provide workers when they want to, demand constant upgrades and periodically block South Korean transport to and from the area. The KIZ shows great love and amazing patience for the north Koreans which I would have lost long ago. Oh, and many of the operations in Kaesong were losing money hand over fist several years before the current financial crisis began.
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