Striking out at Kim’s Club

Now that I am almost in my third trimester, David has been taking over more of the grocery shopping/errand running duties. Walking around Seoul, by the end of the day my feet have usually swollen to the size of small footballs (about Nerf size, I’d say) and all I want to do is stretch out on the couch with a slice of pizza (or six).

Anyway, Monday night he went out about nine p.m. to the Kim’s Club near the Express Bus Terminal to get some food for the rest of the week. I tried to get him to blog about what happened next, but he would only send me the basic details by email. I got a live cellphone play-by-play the night of, so what follows is his account of the Great Monday Night Kim’s Club Cashier Sit-in 2007, interspersed with my reactions by phone. (Sorry, no pictures.)

Dave’s comments are in block quotes while mine are in basic text.

Last night, I experienced a Korean-style union strike first-hand.

I arrived at the Banpo-dong / Express Bus Terminal Kim’s Club around 9pm. Besides a few guys standing around in suits and a handful of empolyees with vests on, things seemed pretty normal. However, by the time I had gathered all of my groceries into a cart, the number of vest-wearing people had multiplied, the set of cash registers closest to me had been intentionally shutdown and blocked by the strikers, the fist-pumping was well under way, and a small brawl had broken out. From my distance, I could not tell if punches were being thrown, but it looked violent enough. The police showed up a few minutes later and calmed things down, but the strikers were allowed to remain.

OK. That’s what he says now. But, when he called me about 9:30, all he said was that there was a protest going on in the store and that some guys had gotten into a fight near the cash registers. So I told him to forget the food, there’s absolutely no fresh kimchi so good it’s worth your safety, and to come home. But he said that things weren’t that bad, other people were shopping, and he’d be fine. Oh, and what kind of sliced ham did I want? By the way, he couldn’t find any zucchini, just cucumbers, would that be OK instead?

So, along with several other confused-looking shoppers, we attempted to checkout at other registers, but were turned away by managers who said there was no cashier available to check us out. At the 2nd register, the strike chanting started just a minute after I arrived. At the 3rd register, a lone striker announced he was shutting the registers down and was greeted with angry words from ajummas and an overturned cart from an upset adjosshi.

At this point, Dave calls me again to tell me it’s going to be awhile, as there is only one remaining register open. Also, he related the tale of the guy overturning his cart. Apparently, most shoppers just abandoned their carts near the checkout lines when they were turned away, leaving the remaining staff to put away or dispose of the food. This dude apparently decided to do them one better. Along with everyone else yelling at the protestors and managers, David decided to try to appeal to everyone’s better nature by pointing out the number of families with children who were getting groceries, but having to leave them behind.

“아이들이 먹어야 해요 ! ” (”The children need to eat!”), he said. Apparently unmoved by his plea to “think of the children” (the children!) the work (semi)stoppage continued. David found the remaining open line and tried to persuade some people to follow him, seemingly without much success.

Finally, at the 4th and final set of registers, things were moving and I was able to finally pay for my groceries and leave with them. I was amused to see the same cart-turning adjosshi and his now-put-back-together cart at those registers. I couldn’t wholly blame him for venting his frustration previously nor could I disagree with his pragmatism for checking out with his goods.

I apologize I have not translated yet the flyer I was handed, which presumably contains the list of complaints the strikers were lodging against Kim’s Club and it’s parent company, Newcore Outlet.

So, I really hope we don’t find out later that Kim’s Club employs child labor or pays its employees poverty wages.  Due to language difficulties, have no idea what the strike was about. We will work on translating the flyer and possibly update this post later.