[Unofficial translation provided by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre]

“Coupang workers demand punishment for ‘coupang’s theft of severance pay’ as labour ministry acknowledges wage arrears”, 19 March 2025

Workers at Coupang have demanded that the Ministry of Employment and Labour recognise the unpaid severance pay owed to them after their employer, Coupang Fulfillment Services (CFS), unilaterally altered its employment rules, effectively denying them their entitlements.

In May 2023, Coupang CFS revised its employment regulations, changing the criteria for paying severance to temporary workers. Under the new rules, workers who had been employed for over a year could be excluded from receiving severance pay if, during that time, they had worked less than 15 hours a week on average for a continuous 4-week period. This meant their continuous employment period would reset, making them ineligible for severance pay. However, according to Supreme Court precedents and the Ministry of Employment and Labour’s administrative interpretation, when calculating the continuous employment period for severance pay, any periods of employment where the worker averaged less than 15 hours a week over 4 weeks should not be counted.

In January, the Ministry of Employment and Labour’s Bucheon branch referred the case of Coupang CFS’s head of human resources, Eom Seong-hwan, to the prosecution on charges of violating the Workers’ Severance Pay Guarantee Act. … The union claims that even after the prosecution’s referral, Coupang has not moved to amend the employment rules again or take further action.