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| Self-employed people chant slogans on a street in Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province, Thursday, during a rally to call on the government to compensate their losses caused by business restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic. Yonhap |
By Bahk Eun-ji
Self-employed people and small business owners are protesting the government's renewed strengthening of anti-coronavirus social distancing rules.
Bracing for a steep decline in earnings during the peak year-end season, they say they have already suffered enough from such measures which they claim have forced them to make sacrifices without adequate compensation.
Kim Dong-geun, 39, who has been running a wine bar and restaurant in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, for six years, said all group reservations were cancelled in the last week of this month, which is usually one of the busiest periods of the year, adding that he continues to receive calls from customers cancelling reservations made for other weeks.
"The most frequent reason for cancellation is because one of their groups was unvaccinated. They asked me to refund the deposit I received in advance, and I have no choice but to refund it," Kim said.
The cancellations have been triggered by the government's new quarantine measures, which were announced on Thursday and will go into effect on Saturday, including limiting the size of private gatherings to four, shortening the operating hours of restaurants and cafes until 9 p.m. and banning unvaccinated people from visiting eateries and cafes unless they are alone.
Shin Seok-hyung, 41, who runs a shabu-shabu restaurant in Seoul's Seongbuk-gu, said this end-of-the-year season has been extremely cruel to self-employed people like him after the bad experience of the 2020 year's end due to strong social distancing measures in place at the time.
"I received eight reservations of more than 10 people for the last week of this month, but all were canceled. I can't even sleep at night just thinking about my bank loan," Shin said.
Against this backdrop, self-employed and small business owners are moving to hold a protest against the government next week.
Six groups representing self-employed people ― those running restaurants, cafes, bars, clubs, karaoke rooms and internet cafes ― said they are considering temporarily closing their businesses next week in a show of protest.
They plan to make a final decision on the closure on Monday in a meeting of the heads of the groups, saying up to 1.3 million members could take part, while the closures will continue for at least three days.
They argued that, although the government promised there would be no more restrictions against small business owners in the future when it started a phased return to normal in early November, the damage was eventually passed on to them.
Cho Ji-hyun, co-chairman of the emergency response committee for self-employed people, issued a statement Friday saying the government has again come up with a policy that forces self-employed people to make excessive sacrifices.
"We have reached a point where we can no longer cooperate with the government's quarantine policy," Cho said. "The incompetence of the government and health authorities shown so far has reached its peak, and there is no more trust in so-called K-quarantine, which shifts responsibility onto the people every time. They are pushing all of us (the self-employed) to the brink."
The emergency committee plans to hold a large-scale rally at Gwanghwamun, Seoul, at 3 p.m. on Dec. 23.
In response, the government announced support measures for self-employed people and small business owners. Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum said, Friday, the government plans to provide 1 million won ($846) each to 3.2 million self-employed people and small business owners as soon as possible to make up for lost sales.
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