North Korea is demanding foreign currency from its overseas workers to fund flood recovery, despite earlier rejecting international aid in favor of “self-reliance,” Daily NK has learned.
Speaking anonymously, a Daily NK source in Russia said recently that the North Korean authorities tasked all trading companies operating in Russia with sending $70 in cash per worker by the end of the month for flood recovery efforts.
The North Korean entities that received the order are trading companies in name only. In fact, they are human resource management companies that control hundreds or thousands of North Korean construction workers affiliated with them.
North Korean construction workers in Russia can broadly be divided into civilian workers and military workers. The latest order demanding cash reportedly applies to all companies managing civilian or military workers.
While the monthly salary of a civilian construction worker differs according to rank and workload, it is usually between $200 and $300 on average. Military workers receive minimal wages since they work on construction sites in Russia instead of serving their mandatory army service, but they still receive about $100 a month on average.
Russia pays the North Korean workers $2,000 a month, but party fees, Socialist Patriotic Youth League dues and other costs are automatically deducted, while the trading companies that manage the workers extort them for over $1,000 a month.
If they have to pay even what the party is asking for in the name of flood recovery costs, military construction workers will take home just $30 this month.
Over 40,000 North Korean workers are estimated to be working in Russia. If all of them paid the authorities $70, Pyongyang would raise $2.8 million this month.