Workers at North Korea’s largest power plant are fuming after being ordered on mandatory ideological tours for Party Foundation Day in 2026. The catch is that they have to pay for the trips themselves.
The Pukchang Thermal Power Complex in South Pyongan province launched the tour program on orders from central authorities, a source in the province told Daily NK on Monday. The trips mark the Oct. 10 founding anniversary of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea.
The coal-fired complex is the country’s biggest single source of electricity and a key supplier of power to Pyongyang. Its smooth operation is critical to a nation that has struggled with power shortages for decades.
According to the source, the campaign aims to arm workers in key state industries with party ideology and strengthen their loyalty to the Kim Jong Un regime. Party Foundation Day is one of North Korea’s most important political holidays, and the state routinely marks it with loyalty campaigns and mass mobilization drives.
The complex’s party committee announced the program on Oct. 8, requiring every workplace and work team at the plant to organize a trip. Each unit must choose at least one destination from an approved list drawn up by the committee.
The list includes the revolutionary battle sites around Mount Paektu, the Samjiyon Hotel, major facilities in Pyongyang, Mount Myohyang and the Yangdok hot spring resort. State propaganda presents the Mount Paektu area as the cradle of the Kim family’s revolutionary legacy, and institutions regularly send workers there on study trips.
Samjiyon is a nearby city that Kim Jong Un rebuilt as a showcase of socialist development. Along with the Yangdok resort, which opened in 2020, it ranks among the country’s most prestigious leisure destinations.
On top of those trips, the party committee ordered workers to tour revolutionary historic sites across South Pyongan province. These day trips take place on one weekend day each week throughout October, for a total of three outings.
Pukchang power plant workers left to foot the bill
The biggest source of anger is that the party committee has shifted the full cost of the campaign onto the workers themselves. “The most controversial part of this campaign is that workplaces and work teams must cover all of the expenses on their own,” the source said.
The directive requires workplaces to consult the complex’s finance department in advance, but neither the state nor the complex has guaranteed any funding. In practice, the source explained, the money comes straight out of the pockets of workers in each team.
Such demands are often described as “non-tax burdens,” the informal levies that authorities impose on ordinary North Koreans. These levies routinely fund official projects, political events and mobilization campaigns that the state budget does not cover.
Many workers at the complex already struggle to afford even a packed lunch, according to the source. Complaints that the order “completely ignores reality” are now spreading across the plant.
Trips to upscale destinations such as the Samjiyon Hotel, the Yangdok resort or Pyongyang come with steep costs for transportation, meals and lodging. Workplace managers and work team leaders have asked the complex for budget support, warning that the expenses would place an enormous burden on workers.
The finance department has refused, however, citing the complex’s own funding shortage. It is instead pressing workplaces to raise the money on their own, which has sharply deepened tensions at the plant.
Managers also warn that the tours threaten the plant’s operations, since a power station must keep running around the clock. Losing staff to long-distance trips or back-to-back weekend outings would cause the plant’s shift system to collapse entirely, they argue.
Above all, many fear that pulling large numbers of technicians and skilled workers away will disrupt core processes at the plant. That could translate directly into lower electricity output just as winter approaches and demand for power begins to climb.
With the cost burden and the threat to power production coming to a head at once, officials at the complex are scrambling for answers, the source said.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
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