North Korea’s Kangryong county in South Hwanghae province as seen from Yeonpyeong Island. (Courtesy of Professor Kang Dong-wan of Dong-A University)Workers at a land reclamation site in North Korea’s Yeonbaek district of South Hwanghae province held an unusual meeting where they openly criticized officials.
“In late April, officials from the provincial party committee’s organization department came to the Yeonbaek reclamation site, suddenly halted all work and gathered workers for a meeting,” a South Hwanghae Province source told Daily NK recently. “Rather than evaluating work performance, the meeting allowed workers to express frustrations about working themselves to death while officials took credit for their achievements.”
According to the source, a work team leader in his forties identified as Kim boldly confronted officials during the meeting, criticizing them for never visiting work sites while laborers struggled with difficult manual tasks. His comments prompted several other workers to join the criticism, questioning why officials received recognition for accomplishments they had no part in achieving.
The meeting hall, previously quiet, grew restless as this unprecedented atmosphere of freely criticizing higher party and administrative officials emerged. Local officials, visibly flustered, repeatedly glanced at provincial party organization officials for cues on how to respond.
The provincial party organization official who led the meeting later referenced the party’s political work direction to “educate workers by correctly combining political and moral stimulation with material incentives.” This emphasized that workers should feel pride in working for the country while also receiving greater benefits for performing well to boost production motivation.
The provincial party organization official emphasized the purpose of their visit was to address labor recognition issues. He referenced socialist distribution principles to reinforce that compensation should be tied directly to effort, differentiating between genuine workers and non-contributors.
As a solution, he mandated the implementation of detailed individual performance tracking systems and a comprehensive evaluation method that would monitor not only work output but also political participation and night shift attendance.
While some workers viewed the meeting positively, seeing it as the party siding with workers over officials in ensuring fair credit for individual effort and performance, others expressed discomfort.
“Some workers said they still feel uneasy around site officials who control their livelihoods,” the source said. “They questioned whether it’s possible to change the mindset of site officials, noting that evaluation problems are common and they can’t appeal to the party every time issues arise.”