There is a “good place to work,” which raised a question about its sustainability with hundreds of billions of won in debt and ordered employees to “rest” for refusing the early retirement program (ERP). Mundipharma Korea is that good workplace.
Mundipharma Korea put its name on the “Good workplaces to work in the Republic of Korea in 2023,” selected by Great Place to Work Institute (GPTW), a global corporate culture surveyor.
In addition, it was also selected as one of the “Good places to work for working moms in 2023” and “Good places to work for Korean millennials in 2025.”
GPTW defines a good workplace as companies where employees trust their managers, have pride in their job, and maintain their love of coworkers.
However, Mundaipharma Korea, which reportedly meets all these conditions, conducted ERP last July and September for full-time workers at its specialized medicine product department. Companies can conduct ERP. However, the company selected targets and sent “suspension orders” unilaterally to employees who did not want to quit.
All this occurred in Mundaipharma Korea, a good place to work.
Two workers ordered to suspend their work filed an application for relief related to unfair business suspension measures with the Seoul Regional Labor Relations Commission. The latter raised the employees’ hands.
“They discussed the suspension order, but there were no concrete discussions on the scope of reassignment and transfer and selection criteria in the organizational reshuffle. Also, they did not discuss the expiry of suspension orders or job reallocation, although the management extended their suspension by one month on five occasions,” the commission said. “Therefore, the suspension orders did not follow proper consultative procedures according to social norms.”
Mundaipharma Korea submitted a recent audit report as the basis for the ERP. To sum up, the report said the company’s current liabilities exceeded current assets by 85.91 billion won ($66.17 million), with total debts surpassing total assets by 142.2 billion won. In short, the company said it had to conduct ERP due to financial difficulty.
When Korea Biomedical Review asked the company about this, it said, “The report was made according to business and accounting principles,” adding that there were no problems with its corporate operation. However, it is difficult to shake off the feeling that the company is two-faced, bringing up this report at the commission.
Moreover, Mundaipharma Korea, which said there were no places to go for the employees ordered to suspend their work, ran wanted ads for “marketing representative” and “secretary for CEO” on the online recruitment site.
Watching the recent series of developments, this writer couldn’t help but wonder whether the employees of Mundipharma Korea could trust their managers, have pride in their work, and regard their company as a “good place to work.”