HYBE Fails to Submit Materials Related to ‘Overwork Death Cover-Up Allegations’

Q. During the Environment and Labor Committee’s National Assembly audit on October 15, allegations of a ‘death from overwork cover-up’ emerged. The claim is that in 2022, during a period of major expansion of HYBE subsidiaries, an employee died from overwork, but HYBE processed it as a pre-existing condition without filing for industrial accident compensation. Were you aware of this?

A. There were rumors circulating quietly within the company. I didn’t personally know the employee who passed away, but I heard about it. I first learned of it when I saw the obituary notice. It caught my attention because it was an employee’s own death. After that, rumors spread within the company. People were saying things like “It happened because of overwork” and “Something happened in the nap room.” I remember an article about it was published and then disappeared. After hearing the stories, I thought, “That’s entirely possible.”

Q. Why did you think that?

A. Because I experienced it myself. When COVID was at its peak, team members would say to each other, “I wish I could just catch COVID.” It was that hard. This was when I was working at Big Hit. The work conditions made no sense.

Q. What was it like specifically?

A. Even before the death from overwork incident, all employees were already exhausted. When we received a concept, we would start production that very night. The structure forced us to work through the night. I had no complaints about that part. Normally, when work ends around 5-6 AM, you should be able to go home and rest. But even after production was finished, we couldn’t go home. If there were revision requests after the review, we had to make changes immediately. So everyone would stay up for days on end. There was no efficiency.

Q. Do you have any specific examples?

A. One day, approval came quickly, so I got home around 6:30 AM. Just as I was thinking, “Finally, I can rest. I’ll sleep a bit and go to work in the afternoon,” I got a call from the company. They said I needed to start on the next production right away and asked if I could come in immediately. Since the rest of my team would have to do it if I didn’t go, I had no choice but to go back right away. I worked with them until 9 AM, then felt like I couldn’t go on anymore. There was a nap room and massage chairs at the company. My team members and I slept in the massage chairs for about two hours. Everyone was nervous and scared even doing that. Some colleagues couldn’t sit still. Once you came to the company, you couldn’t go home for 3-4 days, just working continuously.

Q. Were there no working hour regulations?

A. This was before the 52-hour workweek law was applied. Guidelines also varied by label. Some people got extra pay for working at night, while others didn’t.

Q. Don’t production schedules usually come out based on album release dates?

A. The set production schedule wasn’t the problem. The problem was whether approval would come within that schedule. There were many things I couldn’t understand. Approval from above kept not coming, but there was never a clear reason. Sometimes the very first work we submitted would end up being selected after all. In a word, there was no efficiency. I lost 10kg within a month of joining.

Q. How is it now?

A. The system is somewhat different now. I don’t know if Chairman Bang Si-hyuk was aware of the situation at the time, but there’s definitely a difference between labels where Chairman Bang is directly involved and those where he’s not.

However, HYBE did not submit the case overview documents requested by Rep. Jeong Hye-kyung’s office. Rep. Jeong’s office stated, “As HYBE is a private company, it has no obligation to submit documents. To date, HYBE has not submitted any documents. Apart from the Q&A during the audit, we have not received any separate explanation from HYBE.”