Why a labour union vest still turns heads in South Korea
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Lotte Department Store apologised to union members after they were stopped from dining in the store.
PHOTO: GLOBAL.LOTTESHOPPING.COM
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SEOUL – A video showing people wearing labour union jackets being turned away at a major Seoul department store has sparked nationwide controversy
Lotte Department Store on Dec 13 issued an official apology for the incident at the chain’s Jamsil branch, in which a security guard stopped members of the Korean Metal Workers’ Union from dining there on Dec 10.
The workers were wearing union vests with the words “Metal Workers’ Union” and red headbands bearing the word “fight”, a common symbol in Korea’s labour movement.
The video showed a suit-clad security guard telling the group they should “observe a certain level of etiquette in public spaces” and demanding that the group remove their vests. When a union official responded that they wear the same attire even at the presidential office, the guard counters that the department store is “private property”.
Lotte said the security guard’s response was excessive and promised to revise its guidelines to prevent similar incidents, but the union rejected the explanation, arguing that such enforcement could not have occurred without tacit management approval.
Legal scholars say that the controversy goes far beyond internal store policy. Professor Hong Sang-soo of Sookmyung Women’s University Law School warned that framing the issue as a matter of customer comfort or etiquette risks legitimising discrimination.
“This is not simply about restricting clothing,” Prof Hong said. “Accepting this logic means moving towards a society where hatred is considered permissible.”
Some online reactions defended the store, arguing that businesses have the right to ask customers to remove attire that may make others uncomfortable, claiming union vests provoke hostility.
But Prof Hong said such reasoning is dangerous and may lead to justifying other forms of discrimination.
“If we justify discrimination because others feel uncomfortable, then we are effectively endorsing prejudice,” he said. “Once that happens, discrimination based on age, appearance, race or disability also becomes defensible.”
South Korea’s National Human Rights Commission has previously ruled that denying access to public or semi-public spaces solely because someone is wearing union attire violates the constitutional right to freedom of action.
In a 2022 case involving a union official barred from entering a courthouse for wearing a vest calling for the abolition of irregular employment, the commission found no reasonable grounds to restrict entry, noting the low likelihood of protest activity disrupting institutional functions.
Why the word ‘labour’ triggers discomfort in South Korea
The controversy reveals what many say is a deeper and distinctly Korean phenomenon: a longstanding aversion to the very word “labour”.
Professor Ha Jong-kang of Sungkonghoe University argued that South Korea is one of the few societies where the term, which refers to the Korean word “nodong”, carries strong negative connotations.
Instead, public discourse has long favoured the word “geulloja” – loosely meaning “diligent worker” – a choice that, Prof Ha said, is neither neutral nor accidental.
While geulloja emphasises individual effort and obedience, nodong is a modern term that emerged with industrialisation, referring explicitly to wage labour within a capitalist system – and by extension, to labour rights, collective bargaining and power relations between employers and workers.
In South Korea, that distinction became politically charged during the Cold War. With the Korean Peninsula divided after the Korean War, the ruling party in North Korea came to be known as the Workers’ Party, and its official newspaper as Rodong Sinmun, or “Labour Newspaper”.
In the South, decades of anti-communist education and authoritarian rule fostered what scholars describe as a “red complex” – a deeply ingrained fear that associates labour, unions and progressive politics with communism.
“This red complex made ‘labour’ a suspicious word,” Prof Ha said. “Anything labelled labour-related was easily framed as radical, disruptive or even subversive.”
As a result, South Korea became the only country to officially avoid the term “Labour Day”, instead designating May 1 as “Workers’ Day”.
Attempts to change the wording in law and public institutions have repeatedly stalled in Parliament, reflecting how politically sensitive the term remains even today.
The effects of this legacy are visible in everyday attitudes. Prof Ha notes that when South Korean students are asked what comes to mind when they hear the word “labourer”, they often cite words such as “robot”, “slave”, “servant”, “poor” or “exhausting”.
“Parents still warn children that failing to study will lead them to end up as labourers, reinforcing a hierarchy in which labour is something to escape rather than respect,” Prof Ha added.
“As a result, the word ‘labour’ itself became politicised,” he said. “It was not seen as a neutral description of work, but as something suspicious, ideological or dangerous.” THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
