Restaurant Owner Habitually Defaulting on Wages Arrested While Living Lavishly

A restaurant owner in his 50s, referred to as A, has been arrested on charges of violating the Labor Standards Act for habitually defaulting on employee wages.

According to the Daejeon Employment and Labor Agency on the 24th, A is accused of failing to pay approximately 34 million won in wages to 14 employees while operating four restaurants, including a meat house and a soup restaurant, in the Seo-gu and Yuseong-gu areas of Daejeon from April of last year to recent times.

Investigations revealed that A initially did not pay wages to some employees and repeated the act of defaulting by hiring new employees when existing employees resigned due to unpaid wages.

Notably, the victims of the wage defaults were vulnerable part-time workers, including stay-at-home spouses, youth, and foreigners.

Repeated Wage Defaults While Living Lavishly

According to the Daejeon Employment and Labor Agency's investigation, there have been as many as 20 reports of wage defaults against A since last year. As a result, it has been confirmed that A already has a criminal record with three punishments, including a fine of 4 million won.

Even more shocking is the fact that while defaulting on his employees' wages, A owned and drove expensive foreign vehicles, enjoying a lavish lifestyle with expenditures amounting to tens of millions of won at golf courses and department stores.

Kim Do-hyung, head of the Daejeon Employment and Labor Agency, emphasized, "We will respond strictly to business owners who repeatedly default on wages without any sense of guilt, enforcing arrests as a principle to eradicate wage defaults."

The Labor Agency plans to take strong legal actions against habitual wage defaulting business owners in the future.

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