Hundreds of Korean Air Lines Co. employees plan to stage another rally this weekend against the founding family members accused of abuses and assaults on company staff, the organizing group announced Thursday.
The rally will begin at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in the square in front of Seoul Station, the group said on its mobile group chat used by some 1,000 former and current employees at the top South Korean airline.
Other workers from its affiliated companies and citizens may also join the protest.
It is the second rally by the company staff and a rare movement by employees of a family-controlled conglomerate in Korea standing up against their own boss and his family.
Korean Air employees wearing Guy Fawkes masks and uniforms stage a rally in Seoul on May 4, 2018, in protest of the abusing and mistreatment of the founding Cho family of Hanjin Group, its parent firm. (Yonhap)
The protest comes after video footage of Lee Myung-hee, wife of Hanjin Group Chairman Cho Yang-ho, cursing and rebuking hotel construction workers went viral, sparking a huge public uproar.
The release of the video came in parallel with an incident involving her younger daughter, Hyun-min, who allegedly went into a tantrum in a business meeting in March and threw a drink at an advertising agency official. Lee and Cho are both under investigation and have been banned from overseas travel.
Police are also investigating the Cho family's suspected smuggling of luxury goods and tax evasion.
Last Friday, people wearing Guy Fawkes masks and Korean Air pilot uniforms, to hide their identities, filled the main stairway of the Sejong Center for Performing Arts in central Gwanghwamun, condemning the two women's alleged constant abusing of staff and demanding they withdraw from management. It will be the same dress code for the Saturday rally, the organizing group said.
The second rally will also come with a performance, in which participants will get a chance to tear open bunches of bags filled with nuts, mocking the infamous "nut rage" incident involving Cho's eldest daughter, Hyun-ah.
She made global headlines in 2014 for forcing a Korea-bound flight back to the boarding gate in a New York airport and ejecting the cabin crew chief because she was angry about the way her nuts were served.
She received a jail term for violating the aviation safety law but was later released after a court suspended her sentence. (Yonhap)