A document presumed to be the attendance report of late MBC weathercaster Oh Yoanna has been leaked online.
On the 22nd, a post titled “Late Oh Yoanna's Broadcast Accident, Attendance Record” was published on an online community. According to the document, the deceased was late for the 'News Today' broadcast in January 2022, leading fellow weathercaster Lee Hyun-seung to make an emergency appearance, and there were a total of 9 instances of tardiness and unauthorized absences over the course of a year. The reasons given were all due to being unreachable.
Additionally, a phone recording was also released. The recording captures the deceased expressing her distress over being bullied during a phone call with her mother. The deceased became emotional and even used profanity.
Amidst this, some speculate that the leaked document titled ‘Late Oh Yoanna's Broadcast Accident, Attendance Record’ was created posthumously, and given that it is a document that would be difficult for outsiders to access, along with the inclusion of materials that could be inferred as litigation documents, there are calls to investigate the background of the leak.
In the past, the deceased's family mentioned her attendance issues in an interview. When claims regarding her tardiness and absences surfaced, the family stated, “She couldn’t sleep even with sleeping pills, so she drank soju as well. It was behavior that shouldn’t have happened, but on the other hand, I wonder how difficult it must have been for her to do that,” asserting that it was a result of workplace bullying.
In response, netizens have pointed out, “Even if attendance issues were true, the workplace bullying she suffered is not justified,” “Attendance issues should be handled at the company level,” “We need to find out who leaked this,” “Isn’t this shifting the blame onto the deceased?”
Late Oh Yoanna joined MBC as a weathercaster through a public recruitment in 2021 and suddenly passed away last September. The news of her death was belatedly reported three months later in December.
Subsequently, reports emerged last month that her will was discovered, leading to allegations of workplace bullying. The family has filed a civil lawsuit against a colleague who appears to have engaged in workplace bullying at the Seoul Central District Court last December.
Currently, MBC has organized a fact-finding committee and has begun an investigation. The Mapo Police Station in Seoul has also received related complaints and is verifying the facts.
The current workplace bullying prohibition law applies only to employees under the Labor Standards Act, so it is important for the deceased, who was a freelancer, to be recognized as an employee to be covered by this law. In this regard, the Ministry of Employment and Labor has initiated a preliminary investigation to determine whether the deceased qualifies as an employee under the Labor Standards Act.
[Kim So-yeon, Star Today Reporter]
