Migrant Workers Left Behind in Korea’s Heatwave Protections

A tragic incident in Gumi, North Gyeongsang Province, is sparking outrage after a young Vietnamese worker in his 20s died during Korea’s recent brutal heat wave — all because only migrant workers were excluded from shorter summer working hours.

On July 9th, the Daegu-Gyeongbuk Branch of the National Construction Workers’ Union held a press conference in front of the Daegu Employment and Labor Office. They confirmed that on the 7th, a 23-year-old Vietnamese national working as a day laborer for a subcontractor at an apartment construction site in Sandong-eup, Gumi, lost his life due to the extreme conditions.

Shockingly, the construction site did have a summer heat wave policy — domestic workers were allowed to work from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m. to avoid the peak afternoon heat. But this protection did not extend to migrant workers. While all Korean workers went home by early afternoon, the migrant team was made to work until 4 p.m., right through the hottest part of the day.

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This double standard is raising urgent questions about how migrant workers continue to be treated as second-class labor in South Korea. Labor organizations are now demanding that the government make mandatory heat wave breaks the law, covering all workers equally — regardless of their nationality.

As Korea’s heat waves grow more severe each year, so do the risks for the country’s essential but often overlooked migrant labor force. This tragedy underlines a hard truth: protecting workers from dangerous weather can’t be optional — and it shouldn’t discriminate.

Here are some of the netizens feedback:

1. What, you mean the guy who died on his first day at work? That’s crazy… If it was him, I wouldn’t be able to say anything on my first day… If it was him, that place would be…
2. Foreigners aren’t AI… This is really too much.
3. That’s too much. He’s just like a real person.
4. It’s not just a hot day, it’s over 40 degrees Celsius. What the hell are you doing?
5. Even Koreans have a hard time adapting to this weather, so how can foreigners be expected to cope.

Source: (1)