“I didn’t want to come to this place as long as people didn’t die. However, I heard that (the fired staff) slept for three or four hours to work. people are still dying I came here thinking that we shouldn’t let people die. As far as working hours are concerned, there is no concession as far as overnight stays are concerned. You must not give in.”
Lee Eun-gyu, a former drama director (PD), who directed the MBC drama All Diary and planned the first Coffee Prince store, revealed the reason for attending a press conference on the 27th to accuse the ‘KBS handsome male staff collectively dismissed’. He said, “Without the staff’s passion for video, the (drama) labor board cannot roll. Rather, the system that abuses and sucks it up as much as possible is a crime den,” he said.
On the day when the first airing and production presentation of the KBS Monday-Tuesday drama ‘Beautiful Namdang’ was scheduled, film and drama staff workers and former and current production officials gathered at the Hanbit Media Labor and Human Rights Center in Sangam-dong, Seoul. They testified to the reality that even though drama staff are recognized as workers, it is difficult to raise concerns about labor law violations under the theme of ‘things not talked about at the production presentation of the handsome party’. The meeting was hosted by ‘Joint Action by Civil Society Organizations to Eliminate Illegal Contracts in Drama Production Sites and Apply the Labor Standards Act’.
About 10 staff of the technical team of ‘Handsome Party’ asked People Story Company, the producer of the handsome party, to ‘abide by the Labor Standards Act’ last month, but their contract was rejected. They say that during the filming period, they slept for 3 to 4 hours and worked 15 to 16 hours a day. The contract with the production company specified 13 hours of work per day and 8 hours of rest between work days. It is a violation of the Labor Standards Act itself, but it is pointed out that even this was not followed. According to the staff, the problem of long working hours continues even after the ‘collective dismissal’ incident at the site of the handsome party.
“I died sitting in front of the editor”
Staff A, who was cut off after asking the production company of the handsome party to comply with the labor law, said, “After being fired, I was offered a part-time job at two drama sites, but I said no (to raise a problem).” He said, “Actually, I think that the scene of the handsome party that we raised is similar to the scene of an average drama. In many scenes, they are filming like the handsome men do.”
He said, “If we fail this time (to make a change), the staff in other fields will be afraid to raise any more problems. In the field, there is already talk of making a blacklist (to the raising staff),” he said.
Lee Eun-gyu, a former drama producer who directed the MBC drama power diary, planned the first Coffee Prince store, and served as the MBC drama director, said, “I have a guilty conscience.” He said, “(Early 90s) When I was doing ‘Walking to the Sky’ (drama), I filmed 92 days, 6 and a half days a week, and filmed 18 to 19 hours a day.”
“(At the time of filming), there was the youngest Scripter in the whole staff who was exceptionally cold. (Around 2016) Shortly before this Hanbit PD incident, she came to work at dawn with a bath basket and broke up saying, ‘I can’t sleep, so I have to work, so I’m taking a shower. She then heard that after a few months she heard that the child had died. She edits a weekend soap opera till dawn, sitting in front of the editor.”
PD Lee said, “While filming like that, I felt like I was half-killed.” “After a while, when the Lee Han-bit incident happened, I couldn’t stand it, so I asked the PDs to change it systematically, but nothing has changed so far.”
He said, “When the mini-series genre started, long hours of harsh labor occurred. They are doing (long, long-term work) with the same fortitude and with the same power of the same person.” He said, “All the staff and people in charge are angry and annoyed, but the people who decide this are the broadcast executives who have never been to the workplace.”
It all starts with not seeing the staff as workers.
Attorney Ji-young Yoon (sympathetic to the Public Interest and Human Rights Law Foundation) said, “All problems start with not applying the labor law to the staff.” Lawyer Yoon said, “If you look at the contract between the production company and the staff of Handsome Man, everything goes into ‘One Party’. Working hours and allowances, overtime work and night work are all combined without any expression,” he said. This is because the court saw it as a ‘basic salary’ in the contract that did not indicate this,” he said.
Lawyer Yoon said, “(The Ministry of Labor and the courts) judged all staff, including supervisors, to be workers. He said, “After the death of PD Lee Han-bit, the Labor Standards Act changed. Previously, there were no restrictions on working hours, but as dramas were omitted from the special provisions, a maximum of 52 hours must be observed. (But) it is still not applied in reality.”
Park Chan-hee, chairman of the National Film Industry Workers’ Union, who briefly participated as a grip team at the Handsome Party site, was concerned that the producers of the Handsome Party had serious problems. Chairman Park said, “At the film production site, a labor contract is signed and the four major insurances are applied. In the case of the Handsome Party, I did not feel any effort to keep working hours.”
There were also pointed out the responsibility of KBS for maintaining the position that ‘it is not a KBS-produced drama’ in the face of layoffs. Kwon Soon-taek, secretary general of the Citizens’ Coalition for Media Reform, who works as a viewer member of KBS, said, “KBS misunderstands that KBS continues to do this because it is easy to touch, but the actual filming staff testified that the illegal situation in the KBS drama was serious (last year), and it led to accusations (last year). Lawyer Yoon also said, “KBS is not a production company, so it avoids it as if it has no legal responsibility, but if you look at the contract for the actual KBS drama (producers), it is unified. It is difficult to see that the production company did it arbitrarily.”
Director Kwon said, “If KBS organizes the handsome party like this, it will have the effect of acknowledging the problems that occurred at the KBS filming site. I will do it,” he said. The Hanbit Center announced on the same day that it would propose a declaration of refusal to watch the handsome men and would also request solidarity with the American staff union.
