South Korea: The Tiger Strikes
Independent unions
In the late 1980’s and early 1990s, a period of turbulent battles with the employers and with the state, the independent democratic trade union movement established itself as a powerful force for change. 1988 saw the formation of a ‘National Headquarters for Labour Law Reform’ and 1989 the ‘National Council of Regional and Industrial Trade Unions’. That year, it held a nationwide May Day rally - the first one since 1945 when liberation from Japanese rule was celebrated by the Korean working class in its own stylish manner.
After 1987, unionisation had proceeded rapidly in previously unorganised sectors such as the press, hospitals, construction, research institutes, schools, business associations, servicing and retailing. The newly established unions in the giant factories of Daewoo, Hyundai, Kia etc. increased their strength by coming together on a company level. Rejecting the FKTU as a totally undemocratic and collaborationist federation, they formed their own regional councils and then a ‘National Council’ which reorganised to become the mainly blue-collar KTUC (Korean Trade Union Congress). Encouraged by the success of long-running strike battles at Hyundai, KBS and other workplaces, it flexed its muscles by calling national action of all its members.
In May of 1990, a federation of the (non-FKTU) white-collar unions was established - the KCIIF. Technicians, clerical and financial workers, college employees had set up their own independent federations. Industrial Councils were set up by printing workers, foreign company workers, building maintenance workers and university lecturers. A slightly earlier attempt in 1990 to set up a Solidarity Council of large enterprise trade unions had met with vicious government repression. In 1991 anger erupted at the death in prison of a trade union leader from Hanjin Heavy Industry and the killing by riot police of a student activist with two months of strikes and protests in May and June.
But one initiative stubbornly followed another to bring the white-collar and blue-collar federations together to build an organisation to rival the yellow FKTU. In 1992, a year of struggle against the wage system, the KCIIF and the KTUC came together in a "Joint Committee for Ratification of ILO Basic Conventions and Labour Law Reform". In all of the five years that Roh Tae-woo had been in power, promise after promise on trade union, democratic and human rights had been broken. Even the direct elections conceded in the 1987 struggle failed to produce results which would change things radically in favour of Korea’s working people.
The hopes of many were pinned on the election to the presidency in 1992 of one-time democracy movement leader Kim Young-sam. He even took a number of ‘left-wingers’ from the student movement into his administration. But, in spite of some popular moves against the most hated enemies of the workers, he would soon dash their hopes of any real improvement in their lives. Many of the old methods of holding them down would survive.
Under the new president, the army was, to some extent, purged. The secret police had their wings clipped a little. A number of Chaebol bosses were ‘punished’. The founder of Hyundai, Chung Ju-young, was convicted of illegal spending on his attempt to beat Kim Young-sam in the 1992 election. Later, the founders of Samsung and Daewoo were amongst those put on trial and found guilty of corrupt dealings with the two previous heads of state - Chun Doo-hwan and Roe Tae-woo. The latter were also charged with treason for their part in the Kwangju massacre and put behind bars.
But, in general, the old ‘rules of the game’ still applied. A ruthless persecution of all opposition continued and hundreds of trade union and political prisoners remained in jail. Most importantly for the hundreds of thousands of workers joining the ranks of the emerging independent trade union federations, the labour laws remained firmly geared to ‘single-unionism’ and to maintaining, even intensifying, the unfettered rule of the Korean capitalist class.
Minju Nochong and Hankook Nochong
The mass strikes of that period - Korea Telecom, Seoul Subway, Kumho Tyres - were still being met with mass reprisals. By late 1994, agreement had been reached on the basis for forming a fully fledged alternative labour federation - the KCTU or Minju Nochong. A year later, the KCTU was up and running with an agreed structure, constitution, programme, aims and principles (all accessible on its web-site). In 1995 it orchestrated a nationwide struggle against a new wage curb policy "driven by government and employers", as the KCTU puts it in ‘Our History’ (also on the ‘web’). As a show of strength, a national workers’ rally was organised by representatives of over a thousand individual unions. On the day the KCTU applied to the Ministry of Labour for "acquisition of legality" - 23rd November 1995 - its leader Kwon Yong-kil was arrested and kept in prison until 13th March the following year.
With the economy already running into difficulties in 1995 and 1996, it was clear that the government, acting on behalf of the Chaebol and hiding behind arguments about ‘Segyehwa’ (globalisation) and world competition, would move onto the offensive in an attempt to take back the newly won advances in wages and conditions. The familiar tune about workers putting the economy at risk and ‘pricing themselves out of the market’ was not well received. Even the FKTU or Hankook Nochong came under pressure from its members to organise resistance but, as the KLSI puts it, "continued with its Labour-management co-operative revisionism". It supported the ban on ‘multi-unionism’ which excluded the KCTU from any workplace where either the FKTU or the company already had a union organisation and it did nothing to fight the prohibition of unions in the public sector. (It had also secretly signed wage accords with the employers in 1993 and 1994).
Nevertheless, the KCTU managed to build up a membership of over half a million, organising in the ‘newer’ industries. It has a monopoly of all of the six Korean car-making firms for example and all of ship-building. The FKTU has traditionally organised in medium-sized firms. It claims well over one million members but its rivals say the real dues-paying membership is half that. The average membership of unions affiliated to the KCTU is 3,746 while the average for both federations is only 230. The rate of trade union membership - whether as a proportion of the total workforce of 20 million or of the 12 million employed workers - stands at no more than 14%. But this small ‘active’ can have a powerful effect; persecution creates formidable enemies.
The thousands of dismissed workers in practically every profession are testament to the vicious anti-union policies of South Korea’s bosses but they are also witness to the tenacity of Korean workers in their fight to establish their basic rights. A leader of a strike can expect that by the end of the struggle he will be outside the factory gates forever (unless he becomes a full-timer for the union). It is also pretty certain that he will have to do at least a short period in prison as punishment for his efforts.
Ryu Pang-san is Chair of the Seoul branch of the Korea Telecom union (KTTU) and a leader of the KPSU (Korean Public Service Unions) that brings together unions affiliated to both the national federations and some that are in neither. It links up 150,000 workers on the subway, in broadcasting, at the airport, the Mint etc. with the telecom workers. In 1996, the KPSU conducted a victorious struggle against the government-imposed 3% wage ceiling and won reinstatement of a number of dismissed workers. On 10th January 1997, well into the general strike, Ryu Pang-sang was released from three months’ detention.
"The main reason for arresting me was because I am a representative of militant unions - to weaken the KTTU and also the KPSU. The government’s suppression has focused on the KTTU because telecommunications are very important for the maintenance of Korean industry. Our union is well known for being a radical union. It has 50,000 members and is the largest single union to date.
"In 1994 I was elected union president by the direct voting of grassroots members. Last 4th October the KPSU formed an organisation to fight the labour laws and I was appointed by the executive of the KTTU to chair the campaign. I was arrested on 19th October, two weeks after being elected to this body. This was my second time in prison.
"I immediately got organising in the detention centre. I was able to communicate with other ‘prisoners of conscience’. Every day we had ‘meetings’ or ‘rallies’ - twice a day shouting to each other. I was threatened with having family visits withdrawn if I did not take off a protest ribbon I had made with a biro and paper. I went on hunger strike twice and was kept in solitary confinement. The cell was so small I couldn’t lie down straight." (He indicated the breadth and width with bent arms.)
" There was no actual torture but this was the hardest time for me. It was very cold - minus 15 and no heat allowed. All ten of my toes were frozen. They were swollen and black. After my release they improved but are not yet (two weeks later) perfect. I have to put ointment on every day.
"It was so cold in prison that I was not able to read. I had no gloves...books but no gloves! I wore socks as gloves. The food in prison is terrible, for example, ‘tuna soup’ but no tuna. I lost two kilos this time.
"One of our Telecom leaders is in prison at the moment. On 12th December the new leadership was elected and on the 13th he was arrested... I was in prison over Christmas. We were given chocolate - a third of a bar this size". He indicates two bent thumbs by one and a half bent thumbs". Generosity at Christmas time!"
In ‘normal’ times, according to the KCTU, the number of arrests of trade unionists ‘peaks’ between April and July - the season of wage bargaining and industrial action. Their appeal for help, sent out on the internet last spring headed "Send Back Our Colleagues!", explains that recently, because of international criticism of its repressive labour laws, the government has tended to use other laws. The National Security law was mostly reserved to deal with "those who possess and read publications that criticise Korean society or support the view-point of authority for socialism".
At the time of the 1996 National Assembly elections - also from April to July - there was a noticeable increase in arrests for "participation in anti-state organisations". That same summer, a sanctioned demonstration was blockaded by police because one of the protesters was "wearing a mask resembling the president". Students are constantly harassed by the police and arrested on the slightest infringement of the law - "publishing a phrase from the ‘Communist Manifesto’ of Marx and Engels in a student year planner or wearing a T-shirt bearing the name of a North Korean university.
The human rights organisation, Min Ka Hyop, is heavily involved in campaigning for an end to political arrests as well as torture. One of its reports gives details of the vicious application of the Military Service Law. Young men who are not willing to do three years in the army or the (military) riot police are bound into uninterrupted ‘service’ for a company for five years. If, even after four years and eleven months, they are involved in union activity and dismissed, they must immediately enrol in the army or go to jail.