He added, “We don’t want to lose our jobs, so we just do what we’re told.”Ĭoupang says it meets government standards. “But everyone feels nervous because there are always supervisors watching us, seeing who is on break and for how long.” “The company puts out a few chairs and tells us that if we’re tired, we can sit for a while,” Yoon told Al Jazeera. Some Coupang workers say the e-commerce giant’s logistics centres are unbearably hot during the summer Yoon Soo-hyun, a 43-year-old worker at a Coupang centre in Goyang, a satellite city north of Seoul, said informal norms on the warehouse floor discourage workers from taking breaks. When the company debuted on the New York Stock Exchange last year, it announced plans to hire 50,000 more employees in the country by 2025. With more than 60,000 workers, Coupang is South Korea’s third-largest employer, behind Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor Company. Half of the workers surveyed said that they “always” felt exhausted after their shift, with nearly 30 percent saying they “often” felt exhausted.
An independent 2021 study found that 73 percent of workers reported their work to be more intense than fast walking. In all seasons, work at Coupang is physically taxing. Last year, a government body linked the death of a 27-year-old man at another Coupang centre to his long hours working on the warehouse floor. At least two deaths have been reported at the centre where Jeong works, and labour groups claim that strenuous workplace conditions were factors. Like its US rival Amazon, Coupang has faced allegations that its high-tech dominance is built on the exploitation of workers.
Their demands: adequate air conditioning in all workspaces and a guaranteed 20 minutes of rest time for every two hours of work.Ĭoupang rose to become South Korea’s leading e-commerce firm with its speedy, inexpensive delivery of a near-infinite array of goods, from fresh fruit to lawn mowers and foot massagers. With heat waves now a routine occurrence in July and August, workers want Coupang to commit to binding solutions. Coupang worker Jeong Dong-heon and his colleagues are organising for better air conditioning and more rest breaks at work He and his colleagues are seeking to remind the company, and customers, of the human sweat at the root of convenient, quick deliveries.
Jeong is among a group of workers organising for air conditioning to be considered not a luxury, but a basic necessity for them to do their jobs safely. “Working in the warehouse feels like being inside a boiling pot,” Jeong, 29, told Al Jazeera. This summer, South Korea has experienced record-setting temperatures and the heat has become so dizzying that Jeong often worries about collapsing. Jeong works from 8am to 5pm, carrying out physical tasks that include lifting and carrying heavy boxes. The flower-like shapes are created by accumulated salt deposits – a result of the sweat that pours off his body as he works at a massive warehouse run by one of South Korea’s largest companies. Hwaseong, South Korea – When Jeong Dong-heon returns home from work at a Coupang logistics centre, he often finds crusty white patterns on the back and sides of his shirt.
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