A, who had been working at a Homeplus store in Daegu for ten years, recently received an abrupt notice from the company announcing the store’s closure. If the store shuts down, A and other employees will all have to work at a new store. A submitted a list of five stores she wanted to be assigned to according to the company’s request. She can be transferred to a store as far as over an hour away from where she currently works. When some of the employees complained and said, “I can’t go that far. I’ll only submit my first choice,” the company refused to conduct interviews for reassignment. A said, “Unwillingly, everyone submitted a list of five choices,” and explained, “Most of the people working here are women in their forties and fifties, and they work for the minimum wage. If the commute gets longer, obviously, transportation costs will increase and working conditions will deteriorate. Some people are forced to consider leaving the company.”

Employees at large retail chains are facing threats of restructuring. Major retailors like Homeplus, Lotte Mart and E-mart have begun closing some stores and restructuring the workforce. According to the retail chain workers union (Mart Workers Union) on April 20, Homeplus, whose major shareholder is MBK Partners, a private equity firm, announced that it would close and sell its Gaya Store in Busan and the Daegu Stadium Store after selling its Ansan Store in Gyeonggi, Dunsan and Tanbang stores in Daejeon and its Daegu Store last year. The Tanbang Store closed last February and other stores are currently in the process of shutting down.

There are a total of 840 employees working in these six stores--80 at Tanbang (before closure), 130 at Dunsan, 220 at Ansan, 220 at Gaya, 120 at Daegu, and 70 at Daegu Stadium. The employees have all been reassigned or must be reassigned to another store, but if the company continues to shut down its branches at the current rate, there will be no store remaining to reassign the workers.

According to the union, Lotte Mart also closed twelve stores last year--Dongducheon, Uijeongbu, Yangju, Seohyeon, Ilsan Vic Kintex, and Majang Rest Area in Gyeonggi, Guro and Vic Dobong in Seoul, Cheonan and Asan in Chungcheongnam-do, Geumjeong in Busan and Chilseong in Daegu. The company is also in the process of closing ten more stores this year. E-mart opened 390 new stores in the last six years, but did not hire additional employees, so the labor intensity on site has increased.

The supermarket chains claim that the closures are inevitable since offline stores continue to perform poorly due to the rapidly growing online delivery market fueled by COVID-19. The union can understand the situation somewhat, but argues that the restructuring has been unilateral. B, a supermarket employee said, “They say offline sales have dropped, but when we consider the online sales, it doesn’t make sense to say that the industry is facing a crisis.” She added, “Some store employees are being assigned to the delivery of online purchases. The actual labor of store employees has not decreased.”

The union argued that MBK Partners was withdrawing from the business with a malicious intent to engage in real estate speculation. Kim Ju-hyeon, secretary-general of the Seoul headquarters of the retail chain workers union said, “MBK, a private equity firm acquired Homeplus in 2015, not to run a supermarket, but because of the value of real estate,” and argued, “The Tanbang, Dunsan, Ansan and Daegu stores were the cream of the crop in the nation. It doesn't make sense that they closed them due to poor sales.”

Homeplus said, “The company is working to maintain stable employment. After the closure of the Tanbang store, employees were all reassigned to stores nearby and are working normal shifts.” The company further explained, “We are receiving a list of up to five alternative stores in order to give the employees a wider choice of workplace. We have repeatedly promised to guarantee 100% employment.”