A South Korean Court has ruled that Kangwon Land, the country’s only casino at which locals are allowed to gamble, was justified in dismissing 222 employees who had been hired via illegal means.
The employees had all been beneficiaries of a labor hire scandal which saw Kangwon Land hire more than 500 staff via political and internal connections between November 2012 and April 2013. The company’s former CEO, Choi Hung-jib, was found to have instructed officials to adjust job assessments to ensure candidates linked to high-profile politicians would be hired. He was later jailed for three years.
Two leading members of South Korea’s opposition Liberty Korea Party, Kweon Seong-dong and Yeom Dong-yeol, were also indicted in July 2018 for having influenced the hiring of 50 trainees between them by manipulating interview scores so the chosen candidate would pass.
Kangwon Land issued a statement in September 2019 in which it admitted that in 2012 and 2013 it had hired 518 people of which 493 of them – around 95% – were appointed due to connections with various “influential people.”
According to a report by Korean-language newspaper Hankook Ilbo, 222 employees who were later let go by Kangwon Land recently filed a lawsuit claiming unfair dismissal. However, the 1st Civil Division of the Yeongwol Branch of the Chuncheon District Court dismissed their claim on Friday, stating, “It is difficult to see that the dismissal is against the principle of good faith just because you have worked for a considerable period of time [as] you were hired in an unfair way.”
Kangwon Land was recently ordered to pay compensation of between KRW3 million (US$2,500) and KRW8 million (US$6,750) to each of 21 applicants who were deemed victims of the labor corruption scandal.
