South Korea: The Tiger Strikes
Irrepressible
But, in a country where organising resistance is so bedevilled on all sides by repression, it seems as if every sufferer of injustice is organised. As the revolutionary leader, Lenin, remarked in relation to the Russia of 1905: "The longer the urge for association has been suppressed and persecuted, the more forcibly it asserts itself". In Korea this century there have been very few years free of either colonial rule or military dictatorship and the present ‘democratic’ regime in the South still uses the methods of a police state. Nevertheless, many brave formations have somehow managed to push their way to the surface.
There are the dismissed workers’ organisations, the injured workers, the disabled, the working womens’ associations, the families of the tortured, the foreign workers’ associations. There are the long-standing unions of the teachers that defy the law and now the civil servants and the ‘export zone’ workers who are battling fror the right to organise and strike. There are the legions of blue-collar and white-collar workplace unions, banned from linking up but forging ahead with local and national federations.
There is a multitude of workers’ education groups, of ‘Labour’, ‘Social’ and ‘Welfare’ research institutes, student organisations, agricultural workers’ organisations and there are the almost totally suppressed "revolutionary" organisations. There is the "People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy" organisation, the "Alliance of the Environmental Movement", the "University Teachers for Democracy", the "Association of Lawyers for a Democratic Society" and the "Medical Asssociation for Humanism"....
In the absence of a mass workers’ party, as so often happens in the most oppressed societies, religious organisations use their particular "immunity" to channel and succour the movements of protest. In Korea they are numerous - Protestant, Buddhist, Catholic - and many of them have opposition within their own churches to contend with. Some of their members, priests included, have also found that they are not after all exempt from punishment and often brutal treatment at the hands of the state. Many have done their terms of imprisonment with the usual rations of torture and isolation.
Perhaps most important politically, are the ‘umbrella’ organisations like the "National Alliance for Democracy and the Reunification of Korea" that brings together many of the most defiant and left-leaning organisations, together with the KCTU and some broader community bodies. Within it there will be much talk of ‘civil society’ which seems to mean variously non-military, non-trade union or even the false notion of non-class society. But playing an active part in such bodies are also many convinced socialists, young and old. Similar in composition are the bodies that appear on the scene for specific purposes like the "National Committee for the Revocation of the Labour Law and National Security Planning Agency Amendment and the Preservation of Democracy" (the NCPD or campaigning "Task Force" mentioned earlier) and the committee set up to commemorate the tenth anniversary in June of the ‘Great Democracy Struggle’.
Many of these bodies feature in the pages of this pamphlet but there will no doubt be much interest in the nature and role of the the KCTU or ‘Minju Nochong’ . This is the organisation best known world-wide, especially since the great strike movement it has led. The independent and combative national trade union federation has truly come of age through this battle and emerged strengthened and growing. Only disastrous tactical mistakes in the future could see it broken. For the moment it looks set to eclipse its rival, the establishment-orientated and much less militant Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU) or ‘Hankook Nochung’.
The question inevitably arises of what are the prospects for the formation of a workers’ party in a country where such a party has not, until now, been permitted by law? With a presidential election in December 1997, local elections in 1998 and Assembly elections in 1999, the question has been hotly debated in many circles. There has been a dramatic opening up of the situation and a general political ferment has ensued. Much of the old fear - of being either crushed or humiliated - has gone. But even amongst the most seasoned of campaigners, hesitations on the best way to proceed, delays and even diversions are only to be expected before agreement can be reached.
One thing is certain: the ‘Winter Offensive’ against Kim Young-sam’s bogus democracy has meant that Korean society will never be the same. It has created a new situation. Like all general strikes, as Engels the famous socialist insisted, it requires "a painstaking analysis".
It was Engels together with Karl Marx who pointed out, way back in 1848 in their ‘Communist Manifesto’, how capitalism, in the pursuit of profit, will develop ever more effective and faster means of communication. But, they explain, the bosses cannot prevent the workers’ movement from utilising those same inventions to enhance its own effectiveness in challenging the profit system itself. The workers of Korea have certainly borne this out, but using the devices of the end of the 20th century unimaginable 150 years ago.
The ‘high-tech general strike’ has been so named for the ingenious use by the workers’ organisations and support groups of the very technology associated with South Korea’s success story - the computers, the mobile phones, the fax machines, video cameras and not least, the cheapest and most rapid means of communicating with each other and the rest of the world - electronic mail. One of the first appeals over the internet for world-wide condemnation of the government’s action was actually made by an "Alliance of Progressive Network Groups" whose members had felt very keenly the long hand of Korea’s repressive laws against their own activities. No less than 60 "cyber-friends" had been arrested in the previous year and many thousands of articles wiped off the network by the government.
Daily bulletins with blow-by-blow accounts written and translated by participants, posted on the world-wide web, gave a detailed chronology and a brilliant and graphic insight into the nature of the strike as it was unfolding.
Call to Arms
The ‘Campaign News’ of the KCTU recounts how, by 7.30 on the morning of 26th December, the "call to arms" was being made by the federation’s president, Kwon Yong-kil. 17,000 union members at Kia Motors "kicked off" the action in response. As soon as they arrived at work, they held a mass meeting and decided on a walk-out. They made their way to MyongDong cathedral where the KCTU leadership had set up the general strike headquarters. By 10.30 am, unions at Hyosung Heavy Industry, Daeheung Machinery, Tong-il Heavy Industry and Korea Fukkoku were all reported to be on strike.
Mass meetings of the Korean Hospital Workers’ Unions and the Korean Federation of Professional and Technicians’ Unions voted to strike. By 1pm, many of the unions belonging to the unofficial Federations - metal-workers, automobile workers, chemical workers - had held rallies at their own company grounds and began to converge on the various regional centres.
Hyundai Motors, Hyundai Heavy Industry, Daewoo Heavy Industry and other major manufacturing sector unions stopped work. "The 10pm tally confirmed the massive wave of the general strike that shocked not only the government and the mass media, but also the KCTU office staff", commented the Campaign News. No fewer than ninety-five unions, with a total participation of 146,233 workers, had been on strike the first day. Another 63 unions would join on the second day and a further 17 by the third. Such was the strength of feeling on the issues at stake, that the second day also saw the involvement of the FKTU - the normally docile 101% pro-government federation.
On 27th December, inspired by the French example, members of the 12 unions affiliated to the Korean Federation of Truck Drivers held a 200-strong parade along the main expressway. The next day, 2,000 cars decorated with placards, stickers and flags and carrying over 8,000 workers from eleven different regions drove along the same Seoul expressway "at a turtle pace". Seoul and Pusan subway workers had decided to join the strike.
All six major Korean car makers (all KCTU organised) were at a standstill and occupied. It is an established tradition, given the bitter experiences of the past, for workers to maintain a presence in the factories during strikes for fear of employers starting up work without them or locking them out for good.
Rallies were taking place in all the major cities - meticulously planned and organised like the strike itself. Each trade union contingent had its leaders and stewards who knew exactly what they were doing and the discipline was exemplary. Nevertheless in the capital on the first Saturday, riot police attacked a perfectly orderly demonstration, firing a barrage of tear gas into the peaceful marchers. In the words of the ‘Campaign News’, local and foreign media, eagerly "jumped on the scene". They attempted to portray the general strike as a "rampant deluge of violence" and worse still, tried to provoke it into becoming one. They "failed miserably", the bulletin proudly reports, "as ranks of workers and supporting citizens kept the peace".
Support and Reprisals
A black ribbon campaign "to mourn the death of democracy" spread to the world-wide computer network where 6,000 messages of support had already been registered. On 30th December, after an overnight meeting of the entire federation leadership, the KCTU president, called for a temporary suspension of the general strike for the New Year holiday period. But the same day saw the first of many "reprisals". Police issued charges against the leaders of seven workplace unions in the Inchon region, claiming that they had not got permission for their demonstration of the 26th. The management of Hyundai Heavy Industry filed legal claims against 12 union leaders for "interference with business".
On the evening of December 31st, following the allotted theme for the sixth day of protest -"Farewell to 1996" - thousands of trade unionists and ‘citizens’ held a candle-light demonstration at Myong Dong cathedral. Swaying in time to the songs of the workers’ struggle, they made their way towards the Boshin-gak bell that traditionally sounds the beginning of the New Year. Predictably, police barred their way. They fired barrages of tear gas to prevent participation in the New Year’s Eve ceremony, attended by thousands of people and broadcast live on television. But the demonstrators made detours in groups of three and four and reassembled to unfurl large numbers of placards and make sure their message was heard. On New Year’s Day itself, more celebrations. Favourite amongst the striking workers was a new game - throwing darts at cardboard cartoons of a "typical capitalist", a politician and the president.
On January 2nd a new plan of action was announced at the KCTU’s press conference. The contended labour laws had suddenly been ‘promulgated’ which meant no further delay before their implementation. Kwon Yong-kil now demanded not only the "nullification" of the labour laws and a new round of discussions but the resignation of the entire cabinet. If the government failed to respond, the KCTU would denounce the NKP and organise protest visits to its local offices and a "concerted trade union political campaign against the ruling party in the upcoming presidential election".
In stark contrast to the obvious discomfiture of the ruling layer, workers participating in the numerous union meetings and regional rallies had been enormously encouraged by the news of solidarity action and messages of support. The KCTU now remarked, "The extraordinary international apprehension at the bulldozing of the Bills indicated by the series of protest letters and the news coverage by the international media is, to some degree, responsible for the absence of an immediate crackdown on the General Strike by the government".
"New knowledge," they wrote, "that similar kinds of battles are being fought out in various parts of the world, even in those countries which were once believed to have achieved all there was to achieve for workers’ rights and welfare - countries like Australia, Germany, France, United States - has given them (the striking workers), in a rather ironic way, a sense of being pioneers in this world-wide struggle, giving them a greater determination".