Korea’s Coupang hands cash to bereaved families at workers’ funerals

When Park Mi-sook held a funeral ceremony for her late son Jang Duk-joon in Daegu, South Korea, last October, managers from his former employer Coupang gave her an envelope containing Won3m ($2,600) in cash.

According to handwritten funeral registries, the ecommerce company, which listed in New York last month with a valuation of $80bn, also handed cash to the families of at least two other recently deceased workers.

The payments have done little to assuage the families’ grief over the deaths, which they attribute to overwork. The bereaved families of the three people, who previously worked at logistics centres owned by Coupang, are considering suing the company and its subcontractors. 

“We are seeking an apology, preventive measures and compensation for my son’s death but have been unable to have talks with the company in earnest,” said Park. “We are considering a lawsuit in the US.”

Her son Jang, 27, was found dead in his bathtub in October after finishing his night shift at Coupang’s warehouse in Daegu.

Coupang initially denied responsibility for Jang’s death but an official investigation by the Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service (KCOMWEL) found that he died of a heart attack because of overwork. 

“We were devastated by his sudden death but there was no word of apology from them, let alone admitting that my son’s death was due to overwork,” Park told the Financial Times. 

Labour lawyers and union officials allege that eight Coupang workers, including two subcontractors, have died from overwork over the past year. 

The ecommerce company, which is backed by investors such as SoftBank, Sequoia and BlackRock, vehemently denies responsibility for the deaths, saying only one has officially been acknowledged as work-related. But it is facing increasing political pressure over the incidents.

The family of Park Hyun-kyung, 37, who died in June after working as a subcontractor at a cafeteria in Coupang’s facility in Cheonan, has filed a criminal complaint with the labour ministry against the ecommerce group and two other contractors for allegedly violating the country’s industrial safety law.

Her husband, Choi Dong-beom, said the companies had rejected his requests for meetings. Choi has filed a claim with KCOMWEL for compensation. The state-run Occupational Safety and Health Research Institute is looking into the cause of the death, according to KCOMWEL. 

South Korean companies pay insurance fees to KCOMWEL, which then compensates workers if their injuries are recognised as work-related.

“She had suffered from constant headaches and coughing for months before her death,” said Choi. “But the companies have shown no interest in her death, passing the buck to each other.”

Coupang has countered that a police investigation determined the company was not responsible for Park Hyun-kyung’s death. It said she worked for Dongwon Homefood, a food services conglomerate that provided goods and services to 7,000 companies nationwide, including Coupang. 

Park Mi-sook, the mother of the deceased worker Jang, accused Coupang of not being co-operative in providing work-related information needed to file compensation claims. “I felt humiliated in the process of seeking information from the company,” she said.

According to data provided by ruling party lawmaker Im Jong-sung, workers at Coupang Fulfillment Services, Coupang’s logistics arm, filed 239 claims of work injuries to KCOMWEL for compensation last year. 

Im said Coupang denied 28.5 per cent of claims as work-related, a rate three times higher than the average for Korean companies. However, KCOMWEL has said only 15 of these cases were not work-related.

“If the employer doesn’t admit to work injuries, claimants have to experience a lot of difficulties and pain to prove their injuries are work-related,” said Im.

When asked by the FT about the Won3m in cash payments at the funerals and potential compensation claims, Coupang said it offered support for bereaved families of employees regardless of the cause of death, “including group accident insurance, financial support for the funeral, and condolence money”.

“Any death is a tragedy, regardless of the reason,” Coupang said. “As is customary in Korea, it is our practice to visit the funeral of former workers, give condolences and provide support for families.” 

The company said that of the eight deaths, two were not Coupang employees but on-site contractors and these were not accident-related.

Of the other six deaths, Coupang said, three occurred at home or during vacation and three at work. The three on-site deaths were heart attack-related and none were due to accidents. All of the workers in question worked under 52 hours a week, it said.

“The union is trying to portray as work-related all heart and coronary-related incidents including those that occur at home or on vacation,” the company said. “Cardiac and cerebrovascular disorders are the second and fourth leading causes of death in Korea, and Coupang’s rate of both disorders are lower than the national average in Korea.”

Coupang is not legally obliged to compensate the families of deceased workers unless it loses lawsuits filed by the bereaved, according to South Korean labour laws.

Labour researcher Jang Kwi-yeon said the offer of cash at funerals did not mean the company was admitting legal liability. But she added: “It should be seen as an expression of their moral responsibility.”