Labor dispute spreads..What kind of multinational pharmaceutical company is Sanofi?

This year marks the 32nd anniversary of Sanofi in Korea, and the company boasts 10 years of long-term service by CEO Bae Kyung-eun Last year’s sales 530 billion won by the company headquartered in Paris, France

Sanofi Aventis Korea currently in the middle of a serious labor dispute related to ‘non-payment of wages’ is one of the representative multinational pharmaceutical companies in Korea, which is headquartered in Paris, France.

Its Korean branch was founded in 1991.

Sanofi Korea, which celebrates its 32nd anniversary this year, has over 400 employees and boasts 10 consecutive years of long-term service by CEO Bae Yung-eun (Picture).

Given that the average service time of multinational pharmaceutical companies’ CEOs is 3 – 4 years, Ms. Bae’s ‘10 year long-term service’ is unprecedented. This indicates that the company values her leadership and business performances very highly.

She graduated from the College of Pharmacy, Seoul National University, and was in charge of the business unit of oncology, dermatology, endocrinology and respiratory diseases at Novartis Korea.

Since then, she had worked as the global product director of the oncology business unit at the Novartis headquarters, and then moved to Genzyme Korea, a rare disease business unit of Sanofi, as the CEO. In 2012, she was appointed as the current position, the CEO of Sanofi Korea.

Last year, Sanofi Korea recorded the domestic sales of 530 billion won.

Sanofi Korea laid off 80 employees from the sales department early this year. In the late 2020, the number of employees was 492, but it was found to have decreased to 413 at the end of last year. 

Meanwhile, Sanofi Korea’s management and labor are in serious dispute over the ‘non-payment of wage’.

Its union claims that 4 members of sales staff have not received 11 million won of wages for three years from April 2019 to April 2022.

The union is also preparing a lawsuit for damage to the unpaid wages of 136 other sales staff. If including these unpaid wages, the total amount is estimated to reach 400 – 500 million won.

For this, Sanofi claims that there have been no cases of unpaid wages.

Sanofi Korea said in a recent official statement, "We have reviewed the relevant data and found that we have legally applied the system of ‘working hours out of the workplace’ to the employees in the sales department and accordingly, there have been no unpaid wages to the employees”, adding, "As always, we will faithfully explain the company's position to related authorities and employees."
Labor and management are also in dispute over the management and supervision of working hours.

Currently, the union has filed criminal charges against the CEO Bae Kyung-eun and the executive of human resources for the violation of the Labor Standards Act and non-payment of wages.

[WIKI KOREA=Kim Sun, Reporter]