Good People: "Union's Claim of 'Lime Incident Involvement' Is Groundless"

[Asia Economy Reporter Yoo Hyun-seok] Joheun Saramdeul stated on the 22nd that the allegations related to the Lime incident claimed by the labor union are completely unfounded.

A company official said, “Joheun Saramdeul and the major shareholder completely deny the labor union’s baseless claims regarding the Lime incident. The company’s major shareholder became the largest shareholder in October 2018 through an agreement with the existing management and the labor union, and during this process, the transparency of funds was sufficiently discussed. Therefore, the labor union’s claims are suspected to have other motives or backgrounds,” he said.

Regarding the labor union’s suspicion that Lime-related funds were used as investment capital, the company official explained, “It appears that the Joheun Saramdeul labor union intends to stigmatize the current CEO as an unethical entrepreneur involved in the Lime incident once again. We have already clarified through the securities registration statement submitted during the shareholder allocation rights offering that our investment capital has no relation whatsoever with Lime Asset Management.”

JHW Investment Association became the largest shareholder of Joheun Saramdeul through a third-party allotment rights offering in October 2018. However, due to sudden opposition from the labor union, it failed to secure management rights at the extraordinary general meeting of shareholders in December of the same year. After renegotiation procedures with the labor union, the company finally secured management rights at the regular shareholders’ meeting last March.

A company official emphasized, “During the process of securing management rights, the labor union made excessive demands regarding job security, wage increases, and management participation, and the major shareholder and management conceded and accepted many of these demands.”

The official added, “Nevertheless, due to the deterioration of the business environment following the recent COVID-19 pandemic, we are inevitably conducting minimal restructuring. However, the labor union is obstructing these efficiency improvement activities and demanding management participation. Alongside this, it appears they held this unreasonable press conference to push through wage increases.”

Joheun Saramdeul attempted to issue convertible bonds through a national policy financial institution last year, but abandoned the fundraising process after the labor union threatened to protest in front of the financial institution. Additionally, during the shareholder allocation rights offering, the labor union submitted petitions and filed complaints to related agencies without any grounds, delaying the rights offering by seven months. The company claims that due to the stock price decline, the amount raised decreased from the initially planned 56 billion KRW to about 35 billion KRW.

A company official said regarding the labor union’s unfair activities, “It is judged that some union members are leading efforts to obstruct normal management, induce the relinquishment of management rights, and change the company into an employee-owned company. It seems that protests and press conferences highlighting connections to the Lime incident were part of this series of actions.”

Joheun Saramdeul emphasizes that most of its employees have continuously worked to heal past labor-management conflicts and secure management stability. Last year, aiming for ‘sustainable growth through labor-management harmony and coexistence,’ the company implemented a 7% wage increase despite difficult business conditions and contributed about 420,000 treasury shares (worth approximately 1 billion KRW at the time) to the employee stock ownership association.

A company official stated, “The company’s labor union is demanding a blanket wage increase of over 6% in 2020 following 2019. Amid the unprecedented crisis of COVID-19, the company is forced to conduct minimal restructuring, but the union is obstructing even this, hampering efforts to stabilize management this year as well as last year.”

Joheun Saramdeul stressed that since the press conference contains false information, it will actively respond using all possible means against those involved, judging the actions as spreading false information, defamation, insult, and obstruction of business.

Meanwhile, on the same day, the Joheun Saramdeul labor union held a press conference in front of the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office in Yangcheon-gu, Seoul, claiming that CEO Lee Jong-hyun, who took office in 2018, acquired the company using funds from KOSDAQ-listed companies into which Lime fund money had flowed.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.