“We will create a world where people say, ‘How could we live without Coupang?’” This is what CEO Kim Beom-seok, the founder of Coupang, said a few years ago. This was also called Coupang’s ‘mission.’ I remember getting goosebumps for a moment when I heard these words.
Coupang has grown rapidly. And CEO Kim Beom-seok’s ambition has almost been realized. As I lived in Korea, it became difficult to imagine life without Coupang. Despite controversy over its working environment and management methods, Coupang was considered an ‘essential good’ in Korean society. Recently, a fierce debate broke out on social media over the early morning delivery restrictions of companies including Coupang. Opinions that could not be divided into pros and cons poured out, and harsh words were exchanged.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer under the World Health Organization (WHO) previously classified long-term night work as a ‘group 2A carcinogen.’ Work that goes against human biorhythms not only increases sleep disorders but also increases the risk of developing cardiovascular disease, depression, and cancer. This means that someone’s ‘health’ is included in the box of fresh food and daily necessities that we conveniently receive early in the morning.
It is an indisputable premise that night work is harmful to health. However, whenever discussions related to early morning delivery were raised, they often ended in emotional confrontation. This may be because early morning delivery is not a matter of conflict between ‘convenience’ and ‘health’, but rather a matter of the workers’ own ‘health’ and ‘livelihood’.
Whenever the controversy surrounding early morning delivery intensifies, there is a voice that always appears. This is the claim of the courier workers, “Don’t cut off my food chain.” Some people may easily criticize them for being ‘subsumed by the logic of capital.’ However, for them, early morning delivery is also the last ‘choice’ in a reality where there are no good jobs.
Of course, the good jobs mentioned here are not ones that are comfortable, safe, and guarantee high self-realization. It means that ‘better income’ is guaranteed than what can be earned from other day jobs, and the barrier to entry is relatively low in desperate situations such as failure of self-employment, unemployment, or even ‘two jobs’. Many of the early morning delivery workers may be in a situation where ‘they know very well that it is bad for their health, but they have no choice but to put their health as collateral to make a living.’
Therefore, it is not easy to find a way through discussion. On one side, they call for workers’ right to health and talk about reducing and regulating night work. In principle, this is absolutely correct. However, on the other side, there is fierce resistance, saying that the regulation will directly lead to a decrease in their income and unemployment. This too is a reality that cannot be ignored.
In the end, the moral concern of ‘I’m worried about your health’ meets the backlash of survival, ‘So you’re telling me to starve to death?’ Instead of a moderate and rational discussion, there are emotional criticisms such as ‘consumers enjoying convenience’ and ‘workers who are unaware of the risks to their own health’.
So the question we really need to ask is not ‘Should early morning delivery be banned?’ We must start by asking, ‘Why do so many people have to sell their health to make a living?’
The essence of the problem is not the phenomenon of early morning delivery, but the structure of Korea’s labor market, which has made this the best option. The reality that there is not a sufficient supply of quality daytime jobs and that even the minimum social protection net in the name of platform labor is not functioning properly is driving workers out into the dark early morning roads.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution to any problem. The problem of early morning delivery is even more so. Only by approaching the problem step by step, both in the short term and in the long term, can we find clues to solving the problem. Right now, we need to make sure that early morning delivery workers do not die while working. They must be required to undergo regular health checkups, and a much stronger system of guaranteeing rest periods and night allowances than for daytime work must be established. These minimal ‘safety measures’ cannot be subject to compromise. In the long term, we must move towards a society where people do not have to ‘sell their health’. This is a larger and more fundamental discussion about creating better daytime jobs and expanding the social safety net by bringing platform workers into the system.
Early morning delivery may now be an unstoppable trend of the times. However, it is a dereliction of duty on the part of the government to allow someone’s health to deteriorate helplessly in the midst of this trend. To prevent health and livelihood from becoming a zero-sum game, Korean society must think more intensely about structural alternatives. So let’s continue talking about early morning delivery.
Hong Jin-soo, Social Affairs Director
