Managers in North Korean factories have upped the ante for employees who miss work due to illness or other reasons by requiring them to pay greater fines as a penalty for their absence, sources familiar with the issue said.
“If workers don’t go to work, they have to pay a fine which amounts to several times their monthly wages,” a source from South Pyongan province who recently visited China told RFA’s Korean Service.
In the past, North Korean managers took some money from workers’ wages when they were absent, but they recently started forcing them to offer three kilograms of gasoline as compensation for a missed day, the source said.
In North Korea, which measures gasoline in kilograms rather than liters, about 0.7 kilograms (1 liter) of petrol costs the equivalent of U.S. $1. Employees can compensate for this by working in local markets where they earn more money than they do in factories.
“Although this fine is not specified in regulations, and managers in each production unit randomly decide it, workers cannot help but pay it,” the source said. “Imposing fines on absentees is spreading to other parts of the country.”
Except for routine tasks, if factory workers miss only one day of work, they are charged a fine which amounts several times their wages for a month, sources said. Most North Korean factory workers earn less than U.S. $1 a month.
“It’s part of financially supporting a production unit to impose fines on absentees, but some of government officials are using it as a means of personal enrichment,” a source from North Hamgyong province said.
“It seems that North Korean authorities encourage each production unit to levy high fines” on absentee workers, the source said.
“There’s no reason to try to block this, so that it makes it easier for North Korean authorities to keep watch on residents who belong to production units and to control them,” he added.
‘Capitalist ways are spreading’
A source in China who has knowledge of the matter said the imposition of fines on absentee workers indicates that “capitalistic ways are spreading slowly but steadily in North Korea.”
“Those who violate all sorts of regulations try to cover it up with bribes, which take the form of fines with only a different name,” the source said. “And as time goes by, the fines will likely take root institutionally in North Korea.
It’s possible for some North Koreans to get out of working in a factory in exchange for a lump sum, so they can get higher paying jobs working in local markets, sources said.
Some managers exempt North Koreans from working in factories in exchange for a payment known as “8.3 jil,” which was ordered by former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il on Aug. 3 of one year during the early 1980s, they said.
“Jil” is also used as a derogatory expression by disgruntled North Koreans who dislike the implementation of the policy.
Some North Korean residents as well as “run merchants”—Korean-Chinese who frequently travel in and out of North Korea—pay the sum to avoid factory work, so they can engage in more lucrative cross-border trade with China, sources said.
Reported by Joon Ho Kim of RFA’s Korean Service. Translated by Yunju Kim. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.