hankyoreh

By Heo Jae-hyun, staff reporter 　

Park Hui-seok, 49, lost his life early in the morning on Apr. 18. He was heading out for the shooting of “Bridal Mask,” a miniseries set to begin airing on KBS later this month, when the bus rolled over on a highway near the Hageum intersection in South Gyeongsang province. Thirty extras who were on the bus suffered serious injuries. Park ended up passing away from a cerebral hemorrhage.

His 40-year-old wife, identified by the surname Yun, received word of the accident at around eight o’clock that morning and raced to the county hospital where her husband had been taken. He had already expired. At the hospital, she was met by a director from the “T” entertainment agency [the company’s real name is not being used for legal reasons], which had contracted out the recruitment of Park and the other extras. The director, identified as Lee, told her the company bore no legal responsibility, but would pay 3.4 million won (about US$3,000) in funeral costs “because it’s the right thing to do.” The agency ultimately paid 20 million for funeral costs after Yun’s vehement objections. It subsequently cut off all contact with Park’s surviving family.

Back in February, Park responded to an advertisement by the subcontracting planning company, which said it was recruiting extras for a miniseries. He ended up making over thirty appearances. But he, like most of the other extras, did not have a formal employment agreement with Company T.

Yun requested documents from the agency that had hired her husband in order to file an industrial accident claim with the Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service (KCOMWEL). But Company T, the subcontracting planning company, and KBS all refused to issue documents on Park’s payment. They both argued that it was not their responsibility.

An official with Company T said the planning company was responsible, since it had recruited the extras and paid Park. An employee with the planning company said Company T had essentially recruited Park and was therefore responsible. They also tried to convince Yun to drop her claim, telling her it would never be successful.

Just after the accident, KBS said it would “do [its] best to ensure that [Park’s] funeral and compensation are taken care of quickly and without problems.” Since then, however, it has refused to even cooperate with the industrial accident claim’s processing.

“It’s because they see extras as props they can use and throw away,” Yun said. “Why won’t anyone take responsibility?”

On May 15, Yun filed the industrial accident claim with KCOMWEL, but was unable to provide all the documentation for her husband’s payment. The verdict has yet to emerge. In the past, the service has classified extras as “personal entertainment providers.” In 2008, Seoul Administrative Court acknowledged the worker status of an extra identified as Kim who had filed suit after being injured during the shooting of a miniseries.

But examples of extras having their KCOMWEL industrial accident claims recognized on the basis of this precedent have been few and far between.

Kim Hyeong-dong, director of the Federation of Korean Trade Unions central legal office, said KCOMWEL and the Ministry of Labor “have consistently ignored court rulings.”

Mun Gye-sun, president of the national labor union for extras, recalled a 2007 case in which an extra in his fifties died of shock after participating in a 17-hour “stress test subject” for the KBS program “Secrets of Life.” The death was not recognized as an industrial accident by KCOMWEL.

Park’s widow and their daughter Mi-yeong began demonstrating Tuesday in front of the KBS headquarters in Seoul’s Yeouido neighborhood. The placard in Mi-yeong’s hands is as tall as she is. It reads, “KBS, give me my dad back before you show ’Bridal Mask.‘”

Visitors to the network glanced at the young girl before going on their way.

“If I’d known he would die this way, I would have been better to dad,” the tearful Mi-yeong said as she held up the sign.

An estimated 20,000 people a year work as extras on network miniseries.

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