In the early morning of December 3 last year, the day after President Yoon Suk-yeol declared martial law and martial law troops stormed the National Assembly in Seoul, a young man blocked a military vehicle with his bare hands as it drove toward the National Assembly. Nearby citizens rushed to join him, and the vehicle was unable to advance. Video footage of the scene (pictured) captured by the Washington Post quickly spread online. Lee Jae-myung, the leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), posted the video on his social media account, calling him “the bright future of Korea” and asking people to “find this man.”

Kim Dong-hyun (34), the young man Lee was looking for, had recently posted bitter words about Lee on his social media account as the DPK leader said he could consider making semiconductor research and development jobs an exception from “52-hour workweek policy.”

“The democracy that I, the people who blocked the military vehicle with me, and the people who came out to the square had in mind was not a democracy that sacrifices the lives of the powerless for the sake of the powerful,” Kim told a reporter on the phone on February 8. ”I want to tell (Lee) to listen to the voices of the people who were at the square.” Kim is active in the civic group “Minsnail Union” that works for solving the residential rights issue of tenants while supplying social housing.

When he heard about the martial law declaration on his way home from the gym, Kim stocked up on a week‘s worth of cat food at home and headed to the National Assembly. “It was to stop them from destroying our daily lives,” he said. “What we defended in the snow in the square, Namtaeryeong, and Hangangjin that followed was an equal democracy where we defend and protect each other.” He added, “Citizens who shouted solidarity and peace against violence would not want the person next to them to collapse after working 52 hours or more.”

For Kim, who describes himself as a “non-unionized worker,” the exception to the working hours regulation is contrary to the "democracy that protects lives."

When he was working in the service industry a few years ago, he said he had worked for about 60 hours six days a week. “Even though I was a skilled worker, my hands couldn’t move properly,” he said, adding, ”I got away with it because I was in my late 20s, but if a research and development worker in his or her 30s or 40s does so, there will be problems in blood vessels or brains.”

“Working hard for three months and taking the other three months off doesn't mean your heart, which has already stopped, will beat again," Kim said. “The 52-hour workweek is also an extended working hour of more than 40 hours a week (which is a legal working hour), and to turn this back is to go back to the time when Jeon Tae-il set himself on fire.” He also said, “Already, some semiconductor companies are changing their production jobs to 'research jobs,’ and the construction and shipbuilding industries are asking the government to exclude themselves from applying the 52-hour workweek policy."

Kim said, "The problem of working hours is very serious, especially for the younger generation.“Many people worry about low birth rates, but how can you pick up your child from a daycare center while working more than 52 hours a week? "Young people are called the bright future of Korea, and do you think a bright future and long working hours can go hand in hand?"

“(The impeachment rally was held on Saturday), but those who work more than 52 hours or have to work on Saturdays were not able to come out to the square,” Kim said, adding, ”Young people who work mostly in non-regular service jobs are often unable to come out.”

He also pointed out that the DPK has taken “rightish” moves, focusing on the needs of Samsung and the business community. “It‘s a democracy of the corporations, for the corporations, and by the corporations,” Kim said. ”It was the workers who came to the square, but they are already trying to implement anti-labor policies.”

“I want to tell him (Lee) that this is not what the people in the square wanted, that he is thinking wrong,” Kim said. ‘The world we have been building is for everyone, and the world we are building should not be the ’Samsung Republic.’”