"Migrant workers in South Korea rally for labor rights and end to workplace restrictions,"

Hundreds of migrant workers gathered in front of Seoul Station on Sunday, the last weekend before Labor Day, demanding greater freedom to change workplaces and calling for an end to widespread wage theft and substandard living conditions...

The rally, organized annually on the Sunday preceding May 1 because most migrant workers cannot take the day off, drew about 350 people this year...

Recounting commonplace cases of unpaid wages, the groups said that nearly twice as many migrant workers experienced wage theft compared to native Koreans last year, leaving them owed a total of 121.5 billion won in back pay. 

“Our wages are a matter of survival,” said one organizer. “We came to Korea to earn money, and we will fight to eliminate this widespread wage theft.” 

Protesters also demanded decent housing, pointing to cases of workers forced to live in makeshift sheds plagued by mice, mosquitoes and insects. Many migrant workers, they said, are still consigned to living in vinyl greenhouses or shipping containers. 

“We will keep demanding dormitories where we can live with human dignity,” an organizer said. 

Discrimination in hiring and on the job remains pervasive, the protesters said, with examples of translators being paid less than their Korean counterparts and pregnant foreign instructors being fired.

“The Korean economy cannot function without the 1.3 million migrant workers here,” said Udaya Rai, president of the Migrants’ Trade Union. “But the laws governing migrant employment are extremely discriminatory.”

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