Welcome to BASE21

Warm greeting to all migrant workers working in Korea!

We are the people who are gathered to push the government to guarantee labors' rights of migrant workers in adopting the Employment-permit system.
We think that the important thing in this matter is that you migrant workers recognize the fact and realize your rights. It is the purpose of this letter trying to give you exact information about EPS(The Employment-permit system) and introduce our position about it.

EPS(The employment-permit system) can be valued as an alternative law to abolishing the current Industrial Trainee System. However, the reason we have insist the abolishment of the Industrial Trainee System is because we hope you migrant workers can be accepted as legal labors. As you know, a lot of migrant workers in Korea have suffered from unfair, humble treatment in the name of illegal stayers or trainees. You couldn't be protected by the labor law for you were not considered as labors. But Recently, Korean government is willing to adopt EPS and provide you labor three rights(the rights to make labor union, the rights to negotiate with employer through the union, the rights to act altogether against the company).

Then, does it make the beginning of a new era when migrant workers' lives and labor can be respected? The answer is NO!
NGO like the KCTU, JCMK etc. has been lobbying & campaigning for 'work-permit or employment-permit system' to improve migrant workers' rights in Korea. However, there is no similarity between the proposed EPS of government and that of NGO. The proposed EPS of government has many problem which can restrict your just rights and freedom. If the proposed EPS pass within this year as the government's will, the Industrial Trainee System can be abolished, but there would be no improvement of your hard situation.
We are not saying that the EPS should not be adopted, but saying that we should struggle against the government demanding better level of EPS.
Although the governmental EPS is passed as it is, it is necessary for us to prospectively look into their EPS and try to establish the statement in the name of migrant workers for we should continue to put our effort into revising it in the long term. Migrant workers yourselves should raise the disguised veil.

Now, we will point out the core of the argument of current proposed EPS into two parts.

First of all, as EPS will only qualify new comers, the currently undocumented workers in Korea should return back to home country. The Ministry of Labor intends to start EPS in JAN, 2002. Therefore, there would be big size of crack-down till then. Of course, it is impossible for about 200,000 migrant workers to return at the same time in reality, so there would be chances to get extention to stay in Korea for some people. According to a staff of the Ministry of Labor, some migrant workers who have stayed in Korea for less than 3 years may get this chance.
Then, those people who can to extended to stay in Korea can work legally applied by labor law? No. It is just amnesty for stay period, not for illegal status, so there is no way for you to legally work. It is expected that most migrant workers working illegally will suffer from even more serious crack-down as the number of illegal-stayers is reduced. Also, so many migrant workers who have spent the youth in working, adopting to Korean living style will be forced to go back home countries.
We shouldn't be deceived by the current issue of the adoption of EPS in a hurry. We should not overlook the destiny that the rights of undocumented migrant workers still remains in threat and current migrant workers will face the worse situation as illegal workers.
We hope you realize your destiny and can be armed to struggle for your living rights.

Secondly, the proposed EPS of the government is conditioned as 1+1+1, which causes even worse insecure employment than 2+1 in the trainee system. EPS is limited to only one year and extendable based on the decision of employers. There is no rights to seek other workplace although you are not satisfied with the contracted factory. If you get fired during the contract term, you should return back within 14 days. It doesn't matter that you get unfairly fired or the term of extending for another year is denied with no reason. You can not resist against employer's decision by acting together protected by labor three law. That is why we call labor three law in the proposed EPS of the government a shell.
With the threat of being fired, migrant workers can be extorted. The current situation such as long working hours, poor working condition, humble or delayed salaries will remain.
EPS will only restrict migrant workers' freedom and just rights, not protect them under the name of legal work-permit. To make EPS truly guarantee migrant workers rights, the opportunity is needed that migrant workers know well about the contents of EPS and claim your demands to Korean government.
EPS can be better-made depending on your strong demands and struggle, we are sure.

A few weeks ago, SNforMRF(Struggle Network for Migrant Workers' Complete Labor rights & Freedom of Migration·Working) was established by people who eager to witness reasonable, desirable EPS. This organization is what you can share the opinion of EPS with us and struggle together against false EPS. Please, send e-mail if you have any question or opinion about this matter. We continue to strongly struggle with you for the completion of your rights and freedom. Thanks. SNforMRF