Welcome to BASE21

By Kang Eun-Kyung
Secretary General of FWR
Q We are Vietnamese and undocumented workers. All five of us worked at the same factory. We all stopped working there on the same day. There were no serious problems when we worked at the company. The company just used to delay our salaries and the work was very hard.
We moved to another company where a higher salary was guaranteed. After we moved to another company we asked our former employer to pay our remaining salaries.
He said that he would not pay them. He insisted that we stole households in our dormitory and we committed damage at the company because we produced bad goods. What can we do?

A Why did you stop working without notifying your employer? Several times I have emphasized that a worker should inform his employer if he wants to stop working. Even so, most employers never pay salaries immediately.

I know it from my experience. But if you suddenly stop working, unfair insistences follow; such as accuses of stealing and so on. You insist that you didn't steal them at that time. But we can't prove your innocence.
The most important thing is not whether you can get your salary or not. The most important value is that you abide by the rule in the labor market. Even though many employers violate the rule, we must keep the rule. Then we can get a reasonable position anywhere.

Anyway, even if you did steal in your company, your employer should pay your unpaid salaries.
Stealing is a civil problem and is different from salary problem. And also even if you produced many bad products, the employer should pay the whole amount of your salary. If the employer wants to solve this, he can raise your problem to the civil court.
However, if we apply your problem to the labor office, there would be some difficulties as your case will cause unnecessary doubts to the judge.