South Korea: The Tiger Strikes
More demos
On Saturday 18th January, Wednesday 22nd and again on Sunday 26th January, more of those colourful, defiant and thoroughly disciplined demonstrations took place in the centre of Seoul. The one on 22nd January - the first of the Wednesday strike days - was marked by the dramatic appearance of Kwon Yong-kil and the other seven leaders, who had left their cathedral ‘lair’ for the first time to test the promise of the president that the warrants for their arrest had been lifted.
Tens of thousands of people had gathered in bright winter sunshine to voice, again and in no uncertain terms, their pressing demands: ‘Withdraw the two bad laws!’, ‘Restore democracy now!’ and ‘Down with Kim Young-sam!’
Here is a noisy colourful but disciplined crowd. Many sit cross-legged on the freezing ground some on little thermal squares (of cardboard covered with aluminium), distributed systematically at the beginning by their contingents’ leader. Others on polystyrene or newspapers. They are in neat rows - singing, chanting their responses to a speaker’s fiery words, swaying in lines to a favourite workers’ song or jumping up and sitting back down in a "Mexican wave" that swings through the crowd from one end of the park to the other.
Here are the orange banners of the construction workers and the subway workers, the green banners of Kia car-workers, Daewoo with their white flags, Hyundai and hospital-workers with yellow, Munyo Electronics and metal-workers - blue and the big red banner of the disabled. The teachers are here, determined to have their say. Buddhist monks and Catholic priests and nuns have come with their placards. Even the women who drive away the evil spirits have turned up.
New friends
Here too is Bill Jordan, one-time leader of Britain’s engineers, now at the head of an international delegation to Seoul, making a fiery speech. The bubbling crowd receives him with enthusiastic applause. To the assembled Korean combatants, acutely aware of the risks they run when taking on their government, support from a world-wide trade union body seems such an enormous plus for their movement. Bill Jordan himself appears a little flushed with excitement. But this solidarity mission is in stark contrast both with his own personal record and that of his organisation - the International Confederation of Trade Unions.
A ‘struggle’ head-band seemed inappropriate for a man who in the 1980s had failed to get solidarity action from his own powerful union or from the Trades Union Congress for the British miners in their famous year-long battle with the Thatcher government. Worse still, bearing in mind the KCTU’s battle for multi-unionism, he had become unpopular even with other far from militant trade union leaders for signing single union and no-strike deals with employers. Now he had been writing indignant letters of protest, condemning the Korean Government for their "denial of workers’ rights to form trade unions of their own choosing and restricting trade union solidarity action".
No doubt in a gesture intended by the rally organisers to make him feel at home, he was introduced to the crowd with the strains of the Internationale being played on a synthesiser. (Singing it was still illegal in South Korea but many people, even loosely connected with the movement, knew the words). "I speak on behalf of 120 million members around the world," he declared. "I salute your courage in fighting the unjust laws, stolen in without the light of day". He was obviously warming to the occasion. He threw in a few unfortunate phrases like "working for the prosperity of Korea" and, rather inaccurately, referred to the "united trade union movement" of the country. But his solemn pledge that the ICFTU "would not stay silent until all trade unionists in jail are released" was just what the strikers wanted to hear.
Stunning indictment
But would the international trade union organisation he represented live up to its promises? Has it changed dramatically since the American churchman and author wrote a ‘Message for International Labor’ from the minju (democratic) trade union movement in his devastating book, ‘South Korea: Dissent within the Economic Miracle’. George Ogle had lived and worked for more than a decade in the country before he was arrested and deported for speaking out against the torture and hanging by the Park Chung-hee dictatorship of eight innocent men.
"Where were you in the 1970s when we needed help so desperately? Where were you in 1980 when the guns of Chun Doo-hwan forced his dictatorship on us? Where were you when so many of us were being taken away to ‘purification’ camps? The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) has had contact with the Korean labour movement for decades. The AFL-CIO (major US trade union federation) established its Asia-American Free Labor Institute (AAFLI) in Seoul in 1971. For the next sixteen years it cooperated actively with the KCIA-appointed leaders of the FKTU. It provided thousands of United States aid dollars to the FKTU.
"Never was it recorded, however, that the ICFTU or AAFLI stood with the workers or the unions against oppression. In the 1970s when the women workers at Dong-il Textile were being beaten and humiliated, they were silent. In the early 1980s when the male unionists were being thrown into prison or beaten by the ‘kusadae’, not a word was heard from international unions. Workers in Korea know little or nothing about ICFTU, and have come to believe that AAFLI is an agent of the American government, not a legitimate union operation at all."
Perhaps indeed the ICFTU and other international labour ‘representatives’, in the light of the new circumstances, have now decided to back both unions. After a little steam has been released, they will return to the task of trying to steer them along the respectable channels of class collaboration and conciliation. They will condemn attacks on workers in order to maintain their credibility. They are no doubt motivated by the fact that wages and conditions driven too low in South Korea not only threaten their members elsewhere but constitutes ‘unfair’ competition for its trading ‘partners’ in Europe and the USA.
As a new member of the top 29 capitalist nations’ club, the OECD or Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, South Korea must now have its labour relations ‘regulated’ by the OECD Trade Union Advisory Committee. The KCTU‘s delegation to a special commission set up by this body, which included its International secretary Yoon Young-mo, had already arrived in Paris by the time Bill Jordan was appearing in Jongmyo Park. Around him grew the chants of "Scrap the Ruling Party!" "Kick out Kim Young-sam!" and " Punch-kill the evil labour laws!" Banks of huge loud-speakers boom out revolutionary songs. A big white placard reads: "New policy of not paying for the strike period - ‘No work; no pay’. So you capitalists who don’t do any work shouldn’t get any pay!"
It is clear that there are two distinct trends within the labour movement internationally and both co-exist within the KCTU itself. There is that of genuine struggle against the bosses and their system and that of compromise, reform and getting along with capitalism. At the height of the South Korean movement in January, the former definitely seemed to be in the ascendancy.
Demonstrators speak out
Demonstrators were never shy of voicing their opinions and their messages to the world.
A post-graduate student in Jongmyo Park 18th January:
"We need activists a lot... If they arrest them we will not be able to crack the problems of capitalist society. Yes, I believe the social system must be changed. Even though there is internet communication with other workers, we need more international solidarity and workers in other parts of the world should be aware of what’s going on in Korea."
His partner says the new labour laws should definitely be repealed but she has not been on strike. She works for Samsung, one of the Chaebol conglomerates, which does not allow any union to organise.
At the same rally, the president of the Tong-Jak branch of the Korea Telecom Union, with a head-band that reads ‘Abolish the evil labour law’ explains:
"I and my colleagues are fighting for workers’ rights in Korea and we would appreciate support from workers in other countries. We have participated in the demos and wanted to strike but we have had some internal difficulties with a new leadership that only started from 1st January. But, if they go for the leaders of the KCTU, we will respond by an immediate general strike in telecommunications which will paralyse the country. There is a clause that prohibits strikes by telecom and essential sector workers and imposes compulsory arbitration. We need international solidarity for its repeal. I most certainly won’t be voting for Kim Young Sam’s party in the presidential election this autumn. Greetings."
Kim Jong-woong, branch leader from the Industrial Chemical section of the Federation of Korean Trade Unions, on the 26th January, at the joint trade union demonstration in Yoido square says with a smile:
"Today is a great day. We have released all our discontents into the air. We are hopeful that we can achieve all we want. I am really happy that my union is fighting together with the KCTU, even though I am FKTU. I think we have become more energetic than we used to be through fighting alongside the KCTU. We would like international solidarity. Please help us!"
At the same demo, a woman teacher with a yellow head band that reads ‘We want the Korean Teachers’ Trade Union recognised’ speaks with confidence:
"I have been teaching since 1982. We are very vigorous and have a high feeling of victory. I don’t think it’s going to be easy to get our union legalised because our government knows that we teachers are powerful. This government is not very democratic. They are afraid of teachers’ power because we teach our students things and then they teach their parents. Teachers can have a big influence. They think we are dangerous, they don’t like us.".
Yoido
It was here on 26th January, in front of 100,000 enthusiastic trade unionists, that KCTU leader, Kwon Yong-kil, held high the hand of the leader of the FKTU. Behind them, the dome of the parliament building - the scene of the crime that had set the whole movement off. Across the vast square, towering above the flag-waving and cheering crowd, the gleaming metal and glass headquarters of Samsung and Daewoo Finance - two of the ‘culprits’ - the giant conglomerates that are hand in glove with the state and its corrupt and repressive apparatus. "We’ll put an end to the Chaebol economy and build a new one that can sustain the lives of all the people!" boomed the voice of the KCTU president at the microphone. "If the politicians don’t replace the labour laws...we will fight until all of us perish in the struggle!" In a fiery speech, he threatened to bring forward the renewal of the general strike. Cheers and applause, shouts and whistles of approval greeted his every sentence.
This rally was indeed a show of the potential strength of the combined trade union movement but the numbers had reached nothing like the million or even half a million that many had been talking of. Already there was a feeling that it would not be possible to switch back on the full force of general strike action. The high point of the struggle was over. The ‘fourth phase’ of the general strike was discussed and planned, but even the Wednesday strikes were dropped, in the interests of giving the government and the opposition parties a chance to change the law sufficiently to satisfy the movement. Round table talks were held, the parliamentarians would come back to the question, but every day saw new delays. ‘Hanbogate’ was proving to be a big distraction but such an embarrassment to the government that some other sensation had to be engineered to draw the heat.
The much publicised defection of two families from North Korea in January had hardly caused a ripple amongst the determined strikers and supporters. A bigger "fish" was now needed. Sure enough, on 13th February, the day of the KCTU’s annual congress, which might otherwise have got considerable news coverage, a dramatic announcement was hitting the headlines. The Secretary of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, who was one of its most influential theoreticians, was in the South Korean embassy in Beijing.
Hwang Jang-yop was supposedly denouncing the regime in whose hierarchy he had been one of the most important influences. In a much-publicised letter, purportedly written by him, he demagogically ridiculed the idea that there could be socialism in a country where people were starving. The point is valid but it seemed conveniently designed to provide just the kind of ammunition the Southern regime could use if it felt strong enough to conduct a McCarthyite witch-hunt against the students’ and workers’ movement. But again, the participants from the front-line would not be fooled by these worn-out tactics.
Worker delegates at the KCTU Congress were in a sombre but determined mood. They spoke of countless sackings and victimisations for trade union activity. They spoke of wages that barely cover the necessities of life. And that’s while premiums are still being paid for overtime and night-working. The much-vaunted ‘flexibility’ would cut off this lifeline and that accounts for the strength of opposition seen in the strikes and demonstrations. They spoke of their hatred for the bosses who squeeze every last drop out of their work force already.