In two months time, one more horse groomer committed suicide on August 1, who worked more than 10 years at the same horse racecourse in Busan-Gyeongnam Racecourse Division of the Korea Racing Authority(KRA), in protest of their multi-layer exploitative employment structure.
The second incident took place only two days after negotiations between unions representing horse groomers and Korea Racing Authority concerning employment related issues ended in a rupture on July 30. It seems that the second victim, late Lee Hyun-joon working in the outsourcing contract for long resulted from the multi-layer structure lost hope in improving their harsh working conditions and terms of contract, as negotiations broke down.
reported by Yoon Ja-eun
translated by Kim Sung-jin