"They gave us 10 more minutes for lunch, then cut 6 days of leave... Can small companies really do this?" [What Do You Think?]

[Financial News] An employee at a small company claimed online that the firm deducted "six days of annual leave" just because it extended lunch break by 10 minutes. The post has sparked a wide range of reactions.

On the 10th, a photo capturing a post written by an employee at a small company was shared on an online community and social networking service (SNS) under the title "Annual leave at a certain small company."
In the captured image, the writer, referred to as A, said, "Our lunch break doesn’t last just one hour. It starts 10 minutes earlier, so we get an hour and 10 minutes, and because of that extra 10 minutes they took away six days of annual leave," and asked, "If I have 15 days of annual leave and they take six, that leaves only nine days. I wonder if this is really right."
A also explained, "Starting lunch 10 minutes earlier is not my choice; the company told us to do it," adding, "I have absolutely no desire to start my lunch break 10 minutes early."
They went on to lament, saying, "With six days of annual leave gone, I barely have any days left."
The user who uploaded the captured image to the community wrote, "An exploitative boss like that needs to be hit with some serious financial penalties."

Netizens who saw the post also left negative comments, criticizing the company’s policy.
Comments included, "That’s some impressive scheming. If they let you leave 10 minutes early, you’d probably lose all your annual leave," "What kind of company does that? Changing jobs is the only answer," "It’s so exploitative yet oddly creative," and, "It’s so petty to deduct annual leave like that. Don’t hesitate—report them. Anyone can see it’s illegal."
Some office workers also said they could relate to how hard it is to actually use annual leave.
One netizen wrote, "If you have annual leave left, they won’t even pay it out. They say, 'Just make sure you use it somehow,' but then never give you the chance," while another lamented, "You might as well assume you don’t have annual leave. There are practically no companies where you can really use it."
y27k@fnnews.com Seo Yoon-kyung Reporter