As North Korea’s farms are nearing the end of their fall financial distribution, it has been reported that some farms are openly complaining that their members have been distributed too small a share compared to the efforts they put in throughout the year.
According to a Daily NK source from Hwanghae Province, North Korea on the 26th, the conflict between farm workers and sub-team leaders over distribution of accounts has recently intensified at a farm in Yeonan-gun.
Closing distribution refers to distributing the compensation for one year’s work to farm members in kind and cash according to attendance rate and effort. Here, the number of man-hours worked is the work performance that quantifies the number of days and intensity of work of each farm worker, and receiving a lot of man-hours means that the person has been recognized for doing a lot of work on the farm.
Mr. Kim (pseudonym), a farm worker in his mid-40s at a farm in Yeonan-gun, went to work every day and did the hard work to make a living for his family, so he expected to receive a commensurate amount of compensation in the distribution of accounts this fall. However, the amount of distribution he received was far less than expected.
In fact, it is known that he received 150 kg of rice, 100 kg of corn, and 50 kg of wheat as grains at the farm’s settlement distribution held on the 15th. If you look at it this way, the total weight is 300 kg, but when the husk is removed, the actual weight of the grain eventually decreases to about 250 kg. This is an absurd amount for Mr. Kim’s family of three to survive on for a year.
The source said, “Mr. Kim had no other side jobs other than selling vegetables from his wife’s garden to help with household expenses, so he went to the farm every day and tried to do more work than others in order to receive at least 1 kg more in the fall distribution. “So he expected to receive 600 offenses and defenses this year, which is two to three times that of other people, but he only received 120 offenses and defenses,” he said.
Accordingly, Mr. Kim is said to have openly expressed his dissatisfaction to the sub-team leader, saying, “Even if we can’t pay the amount of work done, shouldn’t we at least pay half of it?”
In particular, he was said to have been enraged at the unfair treatment, referring to another farm worker belonging to the same sub-team, saying, “I am close with the sub-team leader, so he always told me to run errands and gave him time, but he didn’t do any work and received the same amount of manpower as me.”
It is said that the farm worker whom Mr. Kim criticized only came to work 2-3 times a week even during the busy farming season and did not work properly because he had provided material help to the sub-team, such as solving fertilizer problems or providing agricultural machinery parts. However, the source said that since he received a similar airlift as Mr. Kim, it was a situation worthy of a strong protest from Mr. Kim’s point of view.
However, it is said that the sub-team leader did not give in and raised his voice, saying, “We distributed it according to the regulations,” and put Mr. Kim down by telling him not to express his opinions.
The source said, “If this continues, there is a high possibility that Mr. Kim’s family will become a frugal generation by March of next year,” and “If they don’t have anything to eat right now, they have to borrow money or food, but even if they do that, they won’t be able to repay it in the fall, so farm workers like Mr. Kim will have a difficult life.” It is bound to repeat itself and the situation will get worse. “This is why there are no farm workers cutting bones.”
Source: www.dailynk.com
