[The Editors' Verdict] Why Was Changhee Fired?

My uncle (the owner), who has been running a seafood pub in the neighborhood's food alley for nearly a decade, suddenly decided to fire Changhee, an employee who manages both the kitchen and the hall. When I asked why, he said, "He has to pay back his debts! He's about to become a credit defaulter!" It sounded like a scolding, and my uncle responded seriously. The daily break-even sales for his store are roughly one million won. However, these days, it's hard to even reach sixty or seventy percent of that on weekdays.

My uncle, who has been barely holding on by doing business on Fridays and Saturdays, is left with about fifty million won a month, give or take. This situation hasn't just happened recently. Compared to other stores that change their signs almost daily, his place still seemed to shine somewhat, and regular customers he meets along the way have remained, so he never expected things to get this serious.

There are three employees: Changhee, an aunt who handles the kitchen exclusively, and the youngest who manages the hall. Since it's difficult to even pay the interest, they decided to let go of Changhee, who receives the highest monthly salary among the three. Changhee earns a little over three million won a month. Even if Changhee is fired, that money doesn't go directly to my uncle. He has to assign some of Changhee's work to the other two and raise their salaries accordingly. After subtracting and adding, my uncle calculated that he could save about one and a half million won. Still, it would be hard to pay off the interest fully, but he thought he should try to save even a single penny somehow.

"Changhee says not to fire him but just cut his salary, but cutting it a little doesn't make a difference. To cut it noticeably, it would violate regulations like the minimum wage and weekly holiday pay." Both Changhee and the other two employees want to keep their jobs even if they earn less, but it's not that simple.

To borrow my uncle's expression, during COVID-19, he was completely defenseless and got beaten up badly. First, they were forced to lock down, then pushed into debt by policies that 'facilitated' loans, and after failing to pay rent, the entire deposit was gradually depleted. After passing through the COVID-19 tunnel and thinking things might improve, suddenly the 'Fukushima contaminated water rumor' bomb dropped. Once the smoke and dust cleared, complicated issues like inflation and interest rates held back customers' hearts and footsteps.

The cost of popular menu items like mulhoe (cold raw fish soup), assorted seafood, nakji tangtangi (octopus dish), and seafood tteokbokki has risen by over 30% roughly, but raising prices is extremely difficult. My uncle wonders if he should run a few quick service motorcycle deliveries before opening the store, as he did in his younger days, but that would mean cutting down on rest and sleep time, so he's conflicted.

As of the end of March, self-employed loans increased by 2.1% from a year ago to 1,055.9 trillion won, the delinquency rate rose by 0.53 percentage points to 1.52%, and the delinquency rate among vulnerable borrowers soared to a staggering 10.21% (Bank of Korea). Behind these worsening statistics, which have become numbing with each announcement, lie the sharp and vivid stories of 'uncles' like mine. At the turning point of these stories are the government's economic and social decisions and the blunt yet sharp imprint of political strife that has become entangled here without rhyme or reason.

Some of these, like the current minimum wage policy, are just pretty packaging but not beneficial to anyone or even harmful to many, while others, like the radioactive contaminated water debate, have been proven to be reckless and irresponsible. Applying a separate minimum wage for certain industries such as restaurants could have been a small but meaningful first step toward realizing this complicated reality.

On the 2nd, amid chaos at the Minimum Wage Commission where some labor representatives recommended by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions tried to block the vote by snatching the chairperson's gavel and tearing up ballots, the proposal for differentiated minimum wage was ultimately rejected. Who benefits from this, and whose interests does it represent? No self-employed person or small business owner is asking to be made rich. At the very least, they plead not to be pushed off the cliff, but to be allowed to avoid it. The ballots torn that day were not just pieces of paper.

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