Kia Motors CEO Park Han-woo was indicted without detention and referred for court trial on July 9 over allegations that the company used dispatch workers on assembly lines in violation of labor law.
According to the Suwon District Prosecutors’ Office, Park is accused of having 860 workers dispatched from 16 in-house subcontractors to work on Kia’s assembly lines in 2015 in violation of the Act on the Protection of Temporary Agency Workers.
A former manager of Kia’ Hwaseong plant, south of Seoul, was also indicted without detention on the same charge, the prosecutors‘ office said.
The investigation into the top management of Kia was launched in July 2015 after the automaker’s dispatch workers in Hwaseong filed a complaint with the prosecution.
South Korea bans the use of dispatch workers on production lines in the manufacturing industry. A local court also ordered in 2017 that employers pay the same wages to dispatch and regular workers.
Chung Mong-koo, chairman of Hyundai Motor Group, which controls Kia, was also investigated by prosecutors but was not indicted, as he was not found to have been directly involved in the contracting and management of the in-house subcontractor workers.
By Ram Garikipati and newswires (ram@heraldcorp.com)