〈 Reference Examples of Verified and Possible Workplace Harassment 〉


It is impossible to uniformly enumerate acts recognizable as workplace harassment as such acts vary widely in form, and a determination requires a comprehensive consideration of a variety of circumstances. However, examples from actual cases reported in the media, court decisions, and cases counseled by private organizations for public rights are provided below.
➡ When an act of potential harassment is actually committed, whether the act meets the respective legal requirements to be considered as workplace harassment should be determined based on a detailed account of the act and the facts surrounding it.


❖ For professors to realize and be able to fulfill their personality rights, they must be able to lecture on their major disciplines and conduct further academic study. However, one incorporated educational institute assigned an employed professor to give lectures on subjects irrelevant to that professor’s major discipline—without any special circumstances necessary to exercise its right to supervise operations—with the sole intent of excluding the professor from his original duties. This resulted in the professor failing to deliver lectures. (Supreme Court Decision 2006da30730 Delivered on June 26, 2008: Recognition of an Incorporated Education Institute’s Accountability for Damages)

❖ Assistant jobs were given to an employee upon her return from maternity leave rather than her original duties. In a meeting excluding the victim, other employees were also directed to exclude her to drive her out of the company. Following that order, directions were given to remove the victim’s desk and disallow her from sitting at the counter, with remarks being made that the victim was no longer considered an employee, all actions which constitute discriminatory treatment. (Gwangju District Court Decision 2012na10375 Delivered on Oct 246, 2008: Recognition of Accountability for Damages)
❖ A senior employee repeatedly harassed a junior employee, saying that unless the victim held a drinking meeting, he would ensure personnel disadvantages. The senior employee insisted that the junior employee “organize a drinking meeting,” and questioned why that employee “had not set a date?” The harasser also insisted that the victim “write a statement of reasons,” and stated that the junior employee “should spend 30% of incentives in treating a senior.” Such demands were repeatedly handed down and the victim was made to write apologies and explanations. (District Court Decision 2014gohap207 Delivered on Aug 28, 2015: Recognition of Attempted Coercion)

❖ An employee who opposed being excluded from a list of promotion candidates was harassed while protesting against the recommendation for voluntary retirement. The victim was ostracized in the workplace, and given discriminatory treatment including assault while protesting against the change in his duties, having work-related materials and his ID card taken, being made to work from a meeting room and then removing the desk and chairs form the meeting room, being prohibited from using a computer, and being excluded from an e-mail distribution list. (Seoul Administrative Court Decision 2006gu34224Delivered on Aug 14, 2000: Recognition of Industrial Accident Compensation for Consequential Mental Illness)

❖ A disabled individual who worked for a school library under a public job program was physically punished. The victim was prohibited from touching electronic devices such as computers, was hit with a plastic ruler on the palm, or made to keep his arm raised when violating instructions. (NHRCK representation case: 17jinjeong0169100)

❖ An employee was ostracized by colleagues. Harassers intentionally ignored the victim and frequently committed verbal violence including sneering, reproach, and swearing. Furthermore, the victim was not provided with air-conditioning in the summer or heating in the winter. (NHRCK representation case: 16jinjeong0186100)

❖ A deputy principal of a school used swear words and other abusive language which intimidated teachers. When a request was made to approve a formal document, the harasser smashed a table, yelled, and referred to teachers simply as “You!” The harasser also intentionally refused approvals, thereby interrupting work, and intimidated with disadvantages including dismissal. When one teacher refused to undertake consulting, the harasser attempted intimidation by grabbing the teacher’s arm and yelling. (NHRCK representation case: 12jinjeong0974000)

❖ A vice-chair continuously used abusive language including swear words to his chauffeur because he did not like the chauffeur’s driving. He also hit the chauffeur’s head from behind while being driven and forced the chauffeur to drive with the rearview and side-view mirrors folded, causing the victim extreme stress.

❖ A company-level direction was handed down to place the desks of office workers who refused voluntary retirement to face lockers (the so-called work-facing-the-wall). One employee, from among twenty individuals the company selected as voluntary retirement candidates, refused voluntary retirement. The work-facing-the-wall direction was given, and the victim was made to report any time he was out of his position for over ten minutes. He was also prohibited from smoking or making personal calls at times other than during recesses. His wages were reduced as punishment for using his personal laptop, and his duties were changed to include material management, which was not related with his usual office work.

❖ For more than six decades since being established, a company has maintained the practice of forcing female employees to leave upon getting married. Female employees who refused to leave were coerced to quit through a hostile work environment and inappropriate personnel measures.

❖ Company-level “measures to manage reinstated employees” were developed and used against an employee who had been reinstated following an unfair dismissal decision. The victim’s work environment was systematically aggravated with the victim being made to work in front of restroom, placed under concentrated absenteeism and tardiness management, and given highly intense work directions.

❖ A boss held up a soju bottle and threatened to strike an employee at a company dinner and also squeezed the victim’s neck in front of customers. The harasser continuously bullied the victim, humiliating him by throwing paper at him at a gathering attended by a general manager and other colleagues, and by forcing him to stand still and vow repeatedly.

❖ While receiving on-the-job training from the owner, a new restaurant employee was punched in the chest and arm and choked until he was out of breath because the owner did not like the victim’s attitude for learning. The owner demanded that 10,000 won be subtracted from the victim’s salary whenever he threw away what the victim cooked, saying it tasted horrible, leading to the victim having to remit 490,000 won to the owner from his salary.

❖ While being reported, a boss demanded, “Why? Is it wrong? Put your hand on the table.” The boss then held the victim’s left middle finger while pretending to cut it with a box cutter, creating a frightening atmosphere.

❖ A regional headquarters manager responsible for decisions on contract renewal often used violent and intimidating words on a whim. He was heard to exclaim “If you are not capable enough, you have to lobby with your body, Fxxx,” “Fxxx, don’t you have a brain? Do I have to swear to get things done?” and “Crazy bitxx, you can’t work nowhere but here.”

❖ A director gave work directions and nagged foreign and Korean workers with abusive language including swear words. He also verbally insulted workers by saying they needed to work with windows open because of their body odor. The harasser drank outside of the office during working hours, returned to the office, and told one employee to quit while swearing at him. When the victim refused, he smashed a glass table in the office and called in all workers using swear words and other abusive language, making them clean up the broken glass. The harasser committed his abnormal acts including cutting stairs using an oxygen cutter and hammer to intimidate the victim, as well as destroying an office while driving a company fork lift under the influence of alcohol.

❖ A boss posted whiny messages in his team’s mobile messenger group chat room while drunk after office hours or on weekend evenings. When nobody replied, he demanded replies and asked why none were replying, thereby causing suffering to his team members. Furthermore, when his opinions were not accepted, he yelled at and bullied employees, causing mental distress.

❖ With other employees present, a branch head told a victim, “You used to be gorgeous and slender. If I had not been married, I could have done something to you,” and “Let’s have a romantic relationship.” He also repeatedly sexually harassed and molested other young female employees. The victim requested that the regional headquarters take measures, but was ignored, and when the victim raised the issue at corporate headquarters, the harasser threatened to sue the victim over false accusations and continued to harass her, causing her continued suffering from secondary victimization.

❖ In addition to their original duties, employees were tasked with carrying out the CEO’s personal errands and given roles such as chauffeur and personal assistant. One employee was made to remove snow from the vehicle of the CEO’s wife following a heavy snowfall with bear hands. Employees were even mobilized to harvest and sell corn from the CEO‘s personal fields, but the conservative corporate culture prevented the issue from being raised.

❖ A CEO poured different types of alcohol into a large bowl and coerced employees—regardless of gender—to binge drink. Regardless of their personal affairs, employees were required to go at the CEO’s bidding, and he retaliated against employees’ refusal by making their office lives difficult. During a company dinner at a Chinese restaurant, female workers were forced to drink soju and beer mixed in the bowls of jajangmyeon that they had finished.

❖ Employees were forced to prepare a talent show for every company event, and were directed to practice during recesses including lunch breaks. On one occasion, they were instructed to prepare a talent show in the style of “The King of Mask Singer,” a popular singing competition program. Employees were coerced to sing in masks and costumes that they had personally prepared in front of the chair of directors, a director general, and other employees.

❖ A CEO directed five employees to explain a mistake in front of all employees. Notes were also circulated to other employees, asking them to choose measures they thought should be taken from amongst several choices: advising them to resign, assigning them to a production line and giving them a pay cut, giving them a pay-cut for six months, and finding them not guilty (10% pay-cut for the CEO and all employees). The CEO had the results posted on the employee’s mobile messenger group chat room, humiliating the concerned employees. He frequently used swear words and other abusive language, and he sometimes even claimed that if he died, he would kill them all before he died.

❖ A boss continuously harassed an employee wearing outer clothing or a mask because of the cold, and used insults such as “Did you ever wash your padding?” and “Your clothing stinks.” He also pointed out the victim’s clothing and bags in front of others, asking “Did you buy it for 3,000 won?” and saying “All the things you use are cheap.”

❖ A newly transferred director did not like an employee and ordered all employees, including the victim’s subordinates, to ostracize the victim. As a result, the victim had to eat lunch alone, feeling pressure to voluntarily quit.

❖ After the CEO of a customer company set up a blind date for an employee of the primary company, her boss accused her of being “a female worker who played around with the customer company CEO.” The CEO demanded that she break up with her new boyfriend arguing, “you risk revealing corporate secrets to the customer company, and I will not take the risk of continuing to employee you.” The harasser also threatened to have her boyfriend fired using personal connections, and spread rumors, leading to her becoming ostracized.

❖ A boss repeatedly requested written apologies from an employee even though that employee had not committed any unlawful act or violation of company rules. Though the victim inevitably wrote such apologies, the harasser continued asking for additional written apologies and coerced the victim to involuntarily write statements such as “I will take any punishment.” Under the pretext of capacity building, the harasser asked the victim to write book reports, to which the victim agreed, but then continued giving unreasonable peremptory demands, including the instruction to watch an entire drama series (episode 1-20) and write a report. Such demands consumed both the victim’s working and personal time and continued to cause suffering to the victim.

❖ A company tried to coerce an employee to sign a labor contract with degraded working conditions. After the victim refused, company representatives ostracized the victim by unilaterally changing the office passcode and the victim’s personal computer password to block access. The victim was also kicked out of the work messenger service.

❖ After pointing out unreasonable issues when adjusting work duties, the head of a team assigned an employee with duties that were completely different from what that person had previously done. Without allowing for discussion on the issue, and despite the difficult situation this change caused, the irrelevantly assigned duty assignment was upheld, resulting in the victim leaving the company.

❖ After an employee’s shift changed from a night-day rotation to day-time, the team leader began to ostracize him within the company, arguing that the change resulted in increased work intensity for colleagues. The victim was then kept on stand-by without working for three days, and was forced to sit at his table without any work. Though the victim requested that he be assigned work, he was excluded from carrying out his actual duties, instead being assigned miscellaneous work and cleaning duties.

❖ An employee was forced to do chores irrelevant to duties, including plucking the boss’ grey hair, grilling and peeling corn and sweet potatoes, cooking ramyeon, and giving massages. The victim was forced to eat any food leftover by the boss and to eat it in its entirety simply because the victim was the youngest.

❖ An employee who worked at a gas station suffered from abusive language and violence from customers, but the employer neglected this issue and forced the victim to sign an agreement in relation to a criminal case. The employer also made the victim work in a vegetable garden or on his personal land, and used abusive language, including swear words, when the victim refused. He also called the victim in to work on holidays, and when the victim arrived after such a call, the employer swore and used violent language with the employee for being late by as little as three minutes.

❖ CCTVs were installed inside a company and were monitored by a middle manager. Despite not being assigned with monitoring the entrance, and having an office layout that did not allow for the direct monitoring of employee movement, the harasser observed employees from the screen and sent warning emails or messages in real-time. After observing employers having refreshments, the harasser would ask “Did you enjoy your refreshments?” thereby keeping them constantly aware that they were being watched.

❖ A sudden instruction for employees to come to work early in the morning was given by a boss via mobile messenger group chat early in the morning. Workers hurriedly came to work, but just before their arrival, the boss sent another message instructing them to come at the usual time. The boss sent group chat messages like this regardless of time— morning, noon, after office hours, 12 o’clock in the morning—but most of the messages were simply meant to nitpick and explain why his feelings had been hurt. He took out his aggressions on one employee who had not replied to a certain group chat message.

❖ An employee who performed personnel, administrative, and procurement duties at a subsidiary of a public corporation made an occupational error, which led to an aggravated relationship with the boss. The boss responded by using abusive language, including curses, and ostracized the employee in the workplace; the victim was excluded both internally and externally, and essential information was not provided. Furthermore, the victim was addressed simply as “You” rather than with the proper official title, and the boss publicly swore at the victim and threatened actions such as dismissal from the company trade union.

❖ An employee who worked for a mid-sized electronic parts company was recognized for good performance and selected to work in the headquarters sales department, but was at the same time under continuous pressure to recover the falling market share. The boss’ grilling about performance went beyond ordinary levels to include abusive behavior and language. When a business trip did not produce good results, the boss continued the intimidating behavior including using abusive language and tearing up and throwing reports.

❖ Employees used in-house SNS to make sexually harassing remarks and smutty jokes about victims over a long period of time. Despite the imposition of sanctions against them, the harassers continued the behavior through SNS.

❖ A preceptor (a kind of mentor) was assigned to a newly hired nurse. The preceptor began the practice of so-called “taeum,” or burn-to-ashes culture, from the third day after the nurse began work. The preceptor made abusive statements such as “if you are going to quit, quit soon,” “I really want to beat you up,” and “can’t you see? do I have to pull out your eyes and wash them?” Swear words were also used when the victim failed to finish work despite the fact that an inadequate amount of time was given to complete the work.

❖ While working in an operation room, a surgeon yelled at and talked down to nurses, threw surgical instrument, and swore (including the f-word), with more severe abuse being directed at newer nurses. As nurses began to quit because of the surgeon, the work loads of remaining nurses increased, and they were required to take on more night duties due to a shortage of nurses. Nurses requested resolution from the hospital due to the high demands, but the hospital sided with the surgeon and did not resolve the situation.

❖ A boss ordered a subordinate to write his doctoral thesis, and made the victim do his personal work—such as preparing presentations, gathering material for his outside lectures, and writing and marking tests—during office hours. As a result, the victim was required to complete work at home when he was unable to finish within working hours.

❖ An administration general manager directed an irregular cleaner worker to clean his house because he was moving. Though the work fell outside of the victim’s regular duties, as the harasser held a superior position, the victim was forced to accept the task.

❖ A newly transferred boss selected several employees to use as personal trainers in the company gym. He also ordered them to massage him during and after workouts.

❖ A boss directed subordinates to secretly teach him English. The English lessons were not part of their regular duties, and were given in secret in company meeting rooms during office hours at the boss’s direction and without consultation with executives or the HR team. The employees were forced to come to work an hour earlier than other employees when the boss directed them to scan over a 400-page English textbook.

❖ An owner operated a hotel which was situated nearby a restaurant owned by his father. The owner sent hotel employees on rotation to his father’s restaurant and asked them to carry out jobs irrelevant to their original duties. The owner kept the hotel employees working in the other establishment (his father’s restaurant) stating that he needed his father’s financial assistance.

❖ The chair of a hospital board invited an outside training provider to provide training for nurses and doctors after working hours. Though participation was at first voluntary, as time went on, the training became mandatory, and many abusive words were spoken during the course. Employees had to pay between three and ten million won as educational costs, and employees who failed to pay were ostracized and received disadvantageous treatment regarding personal transfers.

❖ A company de facto coerced employees into running a marathon. Employees were required to exercise twice a week (with fines for being late or absent), write training logs, and submit group photos to prove the number of participants, and had to attend two-day overnight training programs in the spring and winter. Finally, employees were required to pay their own entry fees to take part in the marathon tournament.

❖ After a CEO turned down an employee’s request to return after childcare leave, the employee complained to the MOEL and was reinstated. However, the employee was not reinstated with her previous bookkeeping duties, which she had performed for ten years before taking leave, but with marketing work under the technical sales department. In addition, a computer was not provided despite a promise to provide one after a month. When the victim arrived to work before 9:00, she was not allowed to go inside the office, and lunch break was from 12:00 to 13:00, but the victim was not allowed to come in before 13:00. Other employees were instructed to not have personal or work-related talk, and to record every conversation with her.

❖ An employee began work as a deep learning research engineer as his three-year alternative service after obtaining a master’s degree. In violation of the Military Service Act, the company used the knowledge that, if he left the company he would have to serve in the military, to coerce the employee into carrying out administrative duties. The research center head frequently threatened the employee in front of others saying, “I will not renew your contract, so leave.”

❖ An employee became a whistle-blower by proxy after being asked to report by a colleague who had been sexually harassed by her direct boss. The victim told the harasser’s boss about the sexual harassment but the harasser was informed of the whistle-blowing. Following the incident, the harasser frequently browbeat or wagged fingers at the victim, excluded the victim from team meetings, and made remarks that plainly disregarded the victim in front of other employees. Team members also took part in the harassment by ostracizing the victim.

❖ While working as a fixed-term irregular worker, a worker’s boss frequently made humiliating remarks such as questioning “Will I give you a contract renewal or not?” or “We need to make an opening, who shall I fire, OO? or XX?” The victim politely asked the harasser not to make such remarks because they were humiliating. On the contrary, the harasser continued talking behind the victim’s back to other employees, and as a result, the victim was the only fixed-term employee in the establishment whose contract was not renewed.

❖ At a company drinking party, the CEO forced all employees to drink alcohol by delivering it mouth-to-mouth. A male employee was disgusted and secretly spat out what he had received, so the CEO ordered that employee to repeat the same act and this time swallow the alcohol.

❖ A senior worker who was assisting in the delivery of home electronic appliances frequently swore at and physically assaulted him. When a customer provided water or other beverages, the senior employee drank by himself and did not allow the victim a sip, forcing the victim to drink tap water from the restroom. The senior employee also threw cigarettes he had been smoking and a lighter at the victim’s face.

❖ When a senior manager came to work feeling upset about personal issues, he criticized and harassed anyone around him. He also repeated abnormal behavior and insults such as “What’s on your lips? It looks like blood from a live mouse you ate,” (in reference to a female employee’s red lipstick). He also chided others asking “Do you behave like that at home? Is that the way your parents taught you?” and “I say this because I feel like your own brother. Wear a condom when you do it with your boyfriend.” He frequently threw documents, and retaliated whenever a victim reported it to upper management