What makes Korean broadcasting labor scene dangerous
Jin Jae-yon(the Hanbit Center)
JAN 20 2021
"I imposed more than 20 hours of work a day on workers and after two or three hours of sleep, I called them back to the set. It was hard for me to continue it because it was the life I despised the most by rushing and pushing workers who are already exhausted to produce the results we want."
- From the late Lee Han-bit PD’s suicide note
Lee Han-bit PD, the assistant director of the tvN drama <Honsul Namyeo> (It means ‘Men and women who drink alone’), took his own life on October 26, 2016, the day after the end of the drama. In his suicide note, the problems of the broadcasting production environment, which had been taken for granted for a very long time, were written in detail including super-long working hours over 20 hours, dangerous filming sites, abusive language and insults based on military-style hierarchical relationships, and multi-layered subcontracting system. The death of a young PD who wanted to create a comforting drama made the chronic problems of the broadcasting industry exposed to the public.
Workers who are considered part of the broadcast, not human beings with the body to take care of
In South Korea, where workers work 400 to 500 hours longer than the OECD average, super-long working hours in broadcast-media productions are even more notorious. It is a place where you have to endure anything by one word 'Are you going to fail to broadcast on time?', where overnight shooting is a routine and there are no working hours standards, where you have to sleep in a Korean sauna room for the next day after shooting in the middle of the night. That is a broadcast production site.
"They don’t allow me to sleep.", "I want a hotel room, not a Korean sauna room", "Please give me something to eat while working.", "It’s been over 24 hours to shoot right now."
These are messages from workers that we received in the early stages of counseling campaign at the Hanbit Center which was established in 2018 to carry on the will of the late Lee Hanbit PD. With the activities of various social groups and labor unions, including the Hanbit Center, it is changing little by little, but there is still a long way to go. Still, the most important things in the broadcasting industry are viewer ratings and production costs, but the safety and health of workers who make programs are not a priority.
'Because it's a broadcast, it’s helpless' : super-long working hours that have been actively guaranteed by industry culture and laws
The reasons why super-long working hours was possible at the broadcast production site are: first, in the name of the specificity of broadcasting production, there is a culture continued in which night work and overnight work are not a problem at all. And second, there is no legal system to regulate long working hours. The broadcasting industry was an area where unlimited labor was possible for a long time because it was in a "special business category for working hour".
As it is frequent to film without working hours regulations and shoot at night, workers are always suffering from sleep deprivation, and do 'dissolve' work which the line between yesterday and today is unclear. A lot of accidents have happened such as falling accident of the art staff in the tvN drama <Hwayugi>(English title is 'A Korean odyssey'), a falling accident of a freelance camera director in TV Chosun <Miss trot>, a traffic accident in the Netflix original drama <Kingdom>, and the collapse of the set and fire in the SBS drama <Penthouse> recently. These all happened during overnight work and the long filming process. As the shooting are always rushed, great and small accidents happen while moving in a hurry. As it is prioritized to take a film rather than to prepare a safety equipment first, they shoot a vehicle scene, a cliff scene and underwater scene in dangerous situations. There are frequent traffic accidents due to drowsiness. The possibility of such accidents is always lurking under the current working conditions, in which filming must be carried out for broadcasting despite of extreme long working hours and various dangerous situations.
Unpredictable work, unpredictable life
It is a big problem that working hours are not only long, but also irregular and unpredictable. Workers are unable to plan their daily lives, and must always be on standby according to the shooting schedule. It is also the reality of most broadcasting workers that they are not covered by the Labor Standards Act because they are not recognized as workers even though they can’t enjoy basic sleeping hours, breaks, and a right of daily life while working.
They suffer from physical pain caused by long working hours, and are in an vulnerable position legally which makes it difficult to raise problems even in unfair situations, and have mental stress from it. To break this vicious circle, it is necessary to think from various angles.
With the revision of the Labor Standards Act in 2018, the broadcasting industry was removed from the special sector, and the '52 hours per week cap' was implemented in stages. Although filming hours have been decreasing little by little in recent years, broadcaster production companies still do not clarify standards for appropriate working hours. In addition, there is a trick in implementing "flexible work system", like JTBC, without a signed agreement with the employee representative. When implementing the 3-month flexible work system, the maximum working hours per day cannot exceed 12 hours and the maximum working hours per week cannot exceed 52 hours legally. However, they are abusing the Labor Standards Act only as an expedient for long working hours without the law and remove limits on working hours per day and week by interpreting the law arbitrarily(52hours per a week for 3month▶624hours for 3months).
The introduction of the "12ON 12OFF" system to secure sleep and rest time
Hanbit Center insists 12ON 12OFF system, which is settled in the movie scene, should also be applied to the broadcasting site. Even taking into account the specificity of the broadcast site, workers must not work more than 12 hours and must take 12 hours off. The work environment should no longer be left where the safety and health of workers are not taken into consideration for broadcasting production and programming. The schedule and timesheet of the filming should not be solely decided by the broadcaster and the production company without rules and standards.
Recently, Lee Yong-gwan, a father of the late Lee Han-bit PD and a director of the Hanbit Center, who went on a 29-days hunger strike for the legislation of Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act appealed to stop work deaths. Lee Jae-hak PD, who worked at Cheongju Broadcasting for 14 years, but in February last year died after suffering from systematic harassment of company for requesting a salary increase of his colleagues. His nickname was Raku-raku(extra bed), as he often fell asleep after working all night in the office not to go home. In addition, Park Hwan-seong PD and Kim Kwang-il PD died in a traffic accident, as they had to drive while filming to meet insufficient production costs in South Africa. And there are a lot of workers who were thrown away while working at the broadcasting site.
We need to create a broadcasting site where workers can no longer die, get hurt, and work in healthy and safe condition. Long working hours can be banned so that workers can enjoy their daily lives and it should have a regular and stable distribution of working hour. The Hanbit Center will do its best for the rights of the workers behind the camera who are struggling in a difficult situation because they like broadcasting.