A Movie to 2007 E-land protest in South Korea- Cart

“Cart”, which is a film for depicting the human rights defenition of Korea informal harbours. Korea informal harbours cannot be protected by the law. In November of 2007, South Korean National Assembly pass the informal labor laws, which requiring employers to change the states of the workers from informal harbour to formal harbour after two years working. However, it is still cannot be a protective role. When the temporary workers almost reach the 2 years target, lots of employers will fire them in order to reduce the costs. And that is what happened in the movie “Cart”. The character 善熙 is a good example. She is a liable informal worker, she always works overtime without any benefits.She almost can change her state from informal harbour to formal harbour. At that moment, the company decided to fire her. It is so unfair to all informal habour.Therefore, all of the informal workers mentioned in the film had assembled an informal labor union in order to defend their work rights.

“Cart” is a film which is the reference to the real case in Korea of 2007. The case is called “2007 E-land protest”.In the case, Korean companies “E-land” fired more than 500 non-regular workers and hired a huge amount of outsourcing workers instead of the non-regular workers.Most of the victims are the saleswoman and the cashiers.They had been terminating the agreement without any reasons. The action caused extreme dissatisfaction of many employees, and forcing them to set up the informal labor union to against the unfair treatment. Moreover, it leading them to expand strike protest. The war had been continues five years. Finally, most of the informal works have been reinstated by E-land Company. However, the three key members of the informal labor union had been arrested as they were organizing illegal strikes.

There is the total of 8,230,000 temporary workers in South Korea, nearly half the country's total labor. But their hourly salary is often as long as the half of regular employees. The director of “Cart” Boo Jiyoung want to spread out the message about the unfair treatment of informal workers in Korea to public. And she is trying to arouse the public to tackle that serious issue in order to force Korea government to fix it. Hence, Korea government pass the informal labor laws, which requiring employers to change the states of the workers from informal harbour to formal harbour after two years working.

There is video to introduce the movie. Enjoy it!

Photo captured by the film "CART"