Election Office Officials Face Repeated 'Overwork'... "Rest Must Be Guaranteed"

Namwon City Election Office Official Dies on the 8th
"Working Over 14 Hours a Day
Voting Hours Should Be Shortened to Prevent Overwork"

Following the recent local elections, the issue of overwork related to election duties has once again come to the forefront in this general election, with public officials collapsing and dying. Public officials are demanding measures to revise the system to guarantee rest during election work or to shorten voting hours.

According to the National Public Officials Labor Union on the 11th, a public official A from Namwon City, who worked on early voting duties for the general election on the 5th and 6th, collapsed on the morning of the 7th and died on the 8th. It is known that A woke up around 3 a.m. throughout the weekend when early voting was conducted and worked until about 7 p.m. when the polling station was cleaned up. Previously, during the 2022 local elections, public official B from Jeonju City also died while working on early voting duties.

On the 10th, the 22nd National Assembly election day, voters visited the 7th polling station in Jayang 3-dong, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul to cast their votes. Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@

The union emphasized that election duty public officials are driven to such situations due to overwork. They work more than 14 hours a day, including the total 12 hours of voting time plus the time to prepare and clean up the polling stations, and during that time, they are not properly guaranteed rest. Park Jung-bae, spokesperson for the National Public Officials Labor Union, said, "Public officials work in pairs with civilians, but while civilians take breaks in between, public officials have no designated rest time except briefly resting while eating lunch," adding, "We have been requesting the Election Commission to allow shift work, but the situation has not changed because it is difficult to secure manpower."

Recently, the service regulations were revised to mandate days off for public officials involved in voting and counting duties, but there are complaints that local public officials in towns, townships, and neighborhoods responsible for preparing voter lists are not included in the revised provisions. The National Public Officials Service Regulations include a clause for "public officials performing election-related duties as determined by the Director of the Ministry of Personnel Management," allowing those who perform substantial election-related work to be granted days off, but this clause is missing in the Local Public Officials Service Regulations. The union stated, "We believe it is appropriate to grant days off to local public officials in towns, townships, and neighborhoods who oversee related election duties for two months and handle other tasks as well."

However, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety holds the position that local public officials who prepare voter lists and others perform statutory election duties and therefore cannot be granted additional days off. If they work beyond regular hours, they can already receive overtime pay, and granting substitute days off would constitute "double compensation." A ministry official explained, "The additional regulation found only in the National Public Officials Service Regulations was created assuming personnel such as those in the Korea Post responsible for ballot delivery."

The union argues that to fundamentally resolve the overwork problem of election duty public officials, improvements such as shortening voting hours to 8 hours are necessary. Spokesperson Park said, "In Taiwan, voting is conducted from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. This allows counting to start earlier, and even if officials come to work early, they can start at 6 a.m. If voting starts at 6 a.m. as it does now, public officials have to wake up at 4 a.m., and the situation repeats where they get only 2 to 3 hours of sleep after finishing everything including dismantling the polling stations."

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