In 1997, the CWI (Committee for a Workers' International) produced a detailed pamphlet reporting from the mass struggles of the South Korean working-class in the winter of 1996/97. With struggle again taking place in South Korea, it seems timely to share the contents of this pamphlet again.
PREFACE
South Korea: The Tiger Strikes was commissioned by the
Committee for a Workers' International to highlight the significance for the
workers' movement world-wide of the dramatic events of December 1996 and
January/February 1997. The magnificent general strike exploded onto the front
pages of the international press just as a new year was beginning. It rudely
awoke the world to the realities of the class struggle being fought out in the
land once known as the 'Hermit Kingdom'.
It shattered many long-held illusions about the Newly Industrialised
Countries of South East Asia. It reminded the owners of industry how fragile
their system is rendered once the working class decides to move against it in
an organised and determined fashion. It reminded workers everywhere of the
power they have to change the course of history once they take action and fight
in the way the courageous Korean workers did this winter.
South Korea's rulers, amongst the most repressive in the
world, were brought to their knees by the strike which cost up to $4 billion in
lost production. The combative Korean working class has been fashioned through
mighty struggles over the three and a half decades of South Korean capitalism's
meteoric growth. The general strike has shown it to have emerged as the
decisive force in Korean politics.
It has become fashionable, in Korea and elsewhere. since the collapse of the Stalinist planned economies, to argue that the ideas of Marxism and socialism are no longer valid. Instead of contending classes we are supposed to have a 'civil society' in which problems can be ironed out without challenging the system of market capitalism. Undoubtedly, an enormous contribution can be made by the 'middle layers' in any society - lawyers, academics, priests, doctors. But the position of the Committee for a Workers' International is that, far from diminishing in importance, an independent struggle of the working class, that draws behind it the middle layers in the way that the Korean general strike has demonstrates, is the only way to eliminate the evil of exploitation and poverty that are endemic in capitalism.
The tragic recent history of the Korean peninsula provides
almost laboratory examples of societies in which the usual features are carried
to extremes. In the South there is an extreme version of capitalism with all
its polarisation, brutality and exploitation. In the North, is a complete
distortion of what is called a socialist society but is in fact a bureaucratic
deformation of a state-owned planned economy where the working class is deliberately
excluded from control and management.
In South Korea, it is clear to all that wealth and power are
concentrated in the hands of a few individuals - the owners of the Chaebol
conglomerates whose names are known world-wide. Clear to all also is the
super-exploitation that lies behind their enormous success. Mark L. Clifford in
a book called 'Troubled Tiger' identifies the ingredients behind South Korea's
transformation from a third world country :- "brutally long hours, high
rates of savings and investment and hierarchical authoritarian systems that
rewarded those who succeeded and punished those who did not cooperate".
An additional and crucial factor was the involvement of US
and Japanese imperialism. The extremely unpopular measures necessary for South
Korean capitalism to receive its favourable treatment from these quarters - the
normalising of relations with Japan and the sending of troops to Vietnam – were
actually forced through parliament in 1965 in a very similar fashion to the
manoeuvre that sparked off this winter's general strike i.e. in the absence of
all opposition Assembly representatives!
The heavy involvement of the state in developing the Chaebol
economy has reached its limits. The concentration of capital and the elements
of planning both within the economy and within the conglomerates themselves
mean the system is rotten ripe for socialist reorganisation.
At the time of going to press, in July of 1997, the South
Korean labour movement is engaged in an intense discussion on the way forward.
The riot police have been used to attack both student demonstrations and the
KCTU's May Day rally. In the context of a deepening crisis in the North, the
Kim Young-sam regime continues to try and intimidate the movement with the
threat of the 'Northern Wind" – a military invasion from the North - to
intimidate the movement. But a new era has been opened by the general strike.
The Russian revolutionary, Lenin wrote about the marked
change in the balance of forces in Britain after the 1912 miners' strike. He
described it as, "A change that cannot be expressed in figures, but is
felt by all". That must sum up the situation in South Korean society
today.
The new labour laws have not been defeated. Changes have
been made to allow multi-unionism at a national or industrial level but not at
plant or company level until the year 2002. Before then, payment for union
full-timers by the employers will be stopped and the right of strikers to claim
wages and not to be replaced by other workers is being banned.
But Kim Young-sam's attempt to turn the clock back in Korean
society will rebound on the capitalist system he represents. Powerful
organisations are being forged in the struggle that will be ranged against it. The
next few years will be decisive for the future of the long-suffering people of
the Korean peninsula.
This pamphlet examines the achievements of the historic
general strike and some of the difficulties it has revealed about building a
movement to take the struggle forward. The Committee for a Workers' International
would welcome comments and criticism from participants and observers. Through
debate and discussion of the important issues that have come to the surface,
enormous progress can be made. We sincerely hope to be making a contribution to
that process.
The CWI firmly believes in the superiority of internationalism
over a narrow nationalist approach to all the key issues confronting the
workers' movement. We call on all who regard themselves as socialists to become
involved with us. We in turn pledge ourselves to step up the campaigns for
genuine international working class solidarity.
Enormous effort and patience has gone into the preparation
and production of this pamphlet on the part of a very large number of people -
in the translating, transcribing, typing, advising, amending, laying out and
printing. Every one of them has contributed to producing something that will
hopefully have made it all worthwhile. A special mention must, however, be made
of the comrades of the CWI in Japan who gave so unstintingly the finances that
made the visits to South Korea, the taping and the photographing all possible. Special
thanks are also due to all the energetic and kind-hearted activists who gave of
their precious time to discuss what was happening in their country. Finally,
the fondest acknowledgement is for the boundless generosity of those who
provided a place to stay in their own home and to whom nothing was too much
trouble.
The 'Internationale' - the anthem of the workers of the
world – was sung for the first time in many long years at the May Day rally in Seoul
this year. The future is looking good!
'Ann Cook' (Clare Doyle), July 1997
IMMEDIATE IMPACT
At 6 o'clock in the morning of 26th December
1996, when it was still dark, Kim Young-sam, the president of South Korea, was
sitting meekly in a church service with his wife, being photographed saying his
prayers. On the other side of Seoul, the parliamentary representatives of his
party were voting in secret and in a hurry - eleven times in seven minutes - to
push through the infamous anti-working class labour and security laws.
Parallels have inevitably been drawn with the scene in 'The Godfather' - where the
Mafia boss attends mass as his henchmen go about doing his dirty work for him.
The Explosion
Within hours of the deed being done, the biggest general
strike in South Korea for 50 years was underway. The leadership of the
semi-legal Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) had long been prepared
for some such skulduggery. They even slept in their offices over Christmas.
When the news broke of the ruling party's treachery, they simply activated
their meticulously drawn up battleplan. The response from the union's troops
was immediate, even enthusiastic. First were the heavy battalions in engineering
and ship-building, followed swiftly by office-workers and other layers. At last
that pent-up anger and frustration could find expression!
The strikers knew the risks involved and the treatment they
could expect from the state. They knew the leaders were breaking the law by
even calling the strike and that the media would denounce them as "playing
into the hands of the enemy” (the North Korean regime). They knew they had no
real friends in parliament and must rely on their own strength to crush these
laws. There was too much at stake not to engage the enemy now and delay would
mean ignominious defeat. The leaders and the ranks knew all of this, but the
force with which the movement exploded and the impact it had, both in Korea and
internationally, took participants and observers equally by surprise.
It was as if the whole population had long-outstanding
scores to settle with the government, the individual bosses and the system as a
whole. Memories flooded back of the "Great Struggle" of June 1987.
They had not fought, with Kim Young-sam beside them, to rid themselves of
military dictatorship only now to be treated by him in this way.
Within days, hundreds of thousands of people were involved
in mass demonstrations up and down the country. The strikes were growing and
spreading. Different divisions were mobilised at different stages - some out
indefinitely, others for days or even hours. Striking hospital workers set up
stalls in the streets to give free medical help to the public. Car-workers
offered to do instant repair jobs for passing motorists.
The regular baton and tear-gas attacks on the demonstrations by the hated riot police were not unexpected. Nor were the raids on trade union offices. They only served to harden the mood. So did the use by employers of hired thugs to intimidate strikers and hospitalise pickets. The issuing of arrest warrants for the 20 most prominent strike leaders simply prompted workers not yet involved into making combative statements - if they were touched it would be immediate all-out action until their release!
The grounds of Myong Dong cathedral, where seven of the 20
KCTU leaders took refuge and set up camp, became a Mecca for every group of
strikers, well- wishers and international visitors. The hill on which it stood,
in the centre of Seoul, was surrounded day and night by tens of thousands of
battle-equipped riot police. Like the trade union contingents allocated to keep
watch at the entrances to the camp, the police burned braziers to keep warm and
tried to keep up their spirits by reciting the occasional war-chant.
For the workers' guards, singing their own battle-hymns and
holding regular briefing sessions, there was no problem of morale. Each evening
a demonstration of the latest sections of workers to join the strike would
arrive at the foot of the cathedral hill. The riot police would shape up for
action, the demonstrators would pull up their lint masks to cover their mouths
and nostrils and continue to shout their demands. The tear gas canisters would
fly, and maybe the batons, and another day would end like all the rest. With
the trade union leaders still in safety and the government of Kim Young-sam on
the run.
By the third week, the bosses' own 'kept' media had problems
pumping out their anti-strike propaganda; journalists, broadcasters and TV
presenters took to the streets. Groups of professors, lawyers, church leaders,
herbal doctors, housewives, ecologists, dentists were all declaring their
support for the strike. Polls showed 90% of the population against the 'rail-roading'
of the 'evil laws and 88% "regretting having Kim Young-sam as
president".
The opposition parties, who had been barricading the Speaker
of the Assembly in his house to stop him reaching the parliament, were
particularly indignant that the ruling New Korea Party (NKP) had managed to
outwit them. Angered by the pre-dawn manoeuvre, they could not, however, bring
themselves to support a general strike that broke existing law. Nor, as parties
that defend the capitalist way of doing things, could they fundamentally oppose
the aims of the rail-roaded laws. They confined themselves to condemning them
as 'illegal' for the way they were passed and launching a campaign to
gather 10 million signatures for their amendment.
Little or nothing more was heard of this particular campaign.
By contrast, a group of experienced activists on the left of the movement,
heading a multi-organisation "Task Force" to fight the laws, organised
teams of young volunteers to go out every day onto the streets with petitions,
collecting boxes and hard-hitting propaganda leaflets. After a few hectic
weeks, in which they were busy with a whole series of activities, they had
accumulated a mountain of petition sheets full of signatures calling for
complete abolition.
As the shouts grew louder for Kim Young-sam and his government to resign and for his party to "dissolve itself", the president and his men must have begun to sense that the manner in which they had conducted the assault on basic trade union and human rights had been a blunder. Certain 'captains of industry' were openly criticising the tactics. It had been an even more provocative frontal attack than that of Chirac and Juppé against the French working class in the autumn of 1995; and that had been enough to spark a massive strike wave which had shaken the rulers of Europe and many other countries besides. The job of 'liberalisation' and 'deregulation' had to be done - somehow or another - on behalf of a Korean capitalist class facing difficulties maintaining its spectacular growth and its spectacular profits. But the pre-dawn operation in Seoul had set off a train of events that would damage the politicians involved ... probably irreparably.
The Fall-out
Within a month they were engulfed by the Hanbo bribes for
loans scandal which, after ten high-ranking arrests, was inexorably closing in
on the president's second son - Kim Hyun-chul. KimYoung-sam's ratings
were tumbling as fast as shares on the Seoul stock exchange and
confidence in the country 's currency - the won. By mid-February, on the
day the KCTU held its national conference, the government announced a
sensational defection from the 'enemy' state of North Korea, hoping to
use it as a diversion and, typically, as a propaganda weapon against
the movement. South Korean governments must be unique in continuing to
use the old 'Cold War' arguments about 'communist conspiracies' in their
war with the working class to justify maintaining a legal ban on any
talk of 'socialism', 'workers' parties' or even 'class'. It can only be
a matter of time before the new situation that has opened up -
within the country and beyond its borders - renders such legislation
inoperable.
Already it was clear that neither humble apologies from the
head of state nor scare-mongering from his 'kept' press could have the effect
such things used to. Towards the end of February, the trade union leaders were
still under pressure not to settle for any partial changes the parliamentarians
might care to make to what they called the "Bastard Laws". They maintained
the threat of resuming hostilities with a renewal of full, indefinite strike
action.
By the middle of March, President Kim had not only seen fit
to 'dispense with' another of his prime ministers (the fifth since his
administration began) but a whole swathe of his cabinet was replaced. Nothing
he did now, however, would be sufficient to restore his credibility. By May,
the press was speculating as to whether he would be able even to serve out his
remaining months of office. Manoeuvrings at the top of society, corruption, intimidation
are all viewed by ever wider layers of society with a growing contempt. A new
atmosphere has been created by the powerful movement of December - January.
Hitting the Headlines
The world's media had flocked to South Korea to cover the
dramatic scenes. They had reported with a mixture of excitement and trepidation
the atmosphere in the factories occupied by strikers and on the workers'
rallies - row upon row of defiant men and women in coloured headbands,
rhythmically punching the air with their fists or singing the much-loved
revolutionary anthems with smiles of pride and anticipation on their faces.
Photo opportunities abounded. Captured on film was the
programmed brutality of the riot police going into action against peaceful and
orderly demonstrations, the tall masts of trade union banners dipping this way
and that as the "pepper pot" canisters emitted white clouds of gas
into the staggering, scattering crowds. The cameras could not help but convey
the calm dignity of the shaven-headed trade union leaders holding their daily
press conferences in the courtyard of the tall redbrick cathedral. Even the fixed
smile of South Korea's president became familiar to millions in far distant
lands.
But reporters come and go and the contending forces have to
weigh up what has happened. Around the world, sensational headlines referring
to the plight of the South Korean "Tiger" would be greeted with
different emotions, depending on the class standpoint of the reader.
Representatives of the employing class and all those who have tried to maintain
that South Korea is a model of capitalist development began to shudder. Were
their theories now in ruins? Why had the economy been slowing down and
suffering record trade deficits? And now the strikes. France, with its powerful
movements against austerity measures, had come to South East Asia.
Workers, on the other hand, would feel their hearts leap at
the news from Seoul. Here was a ruling class that had overstepped the mark
getting it where it hurts. They willed the legendary Korean working class on to
victory, frustrated by moves to the right of their own labour leaders that held
them back from a generalised political assault on their exploiters. A blow for
one is a blow for all. Who knows what the implications might be for the bosses
and their defenders throughout the world? They would surely all feel weakened
and workers everywhere emboldened.
Too much to bear
The fresh example of the French lorry-drivers getting quick
results by concerted action was indeed a reference point for the Korean strike.
There were many workers who believed that the measures now being inflicted on
Korean workers would not be tolerated in Europe and the USA. They did not know of
the heavy defeats already inflicted by Reaganite, Thatcherite,
"neo-liberal" governments world-wide. Others, including the KCTU
leaders, were well aware that workers in many countries had lost their battles
against such things as "flexible" (flat-rate) hours, deregulation,
temporary contracts. But they were also very much aware that in a country
ranked 122nd in the world for welfare provision, bringing South Korea
"into line" on such issues, would drive the majority of their members
to the edge of endurance.
There is no unemployment benefit to speak of in South Korea.
All education and health care must be paid for. The basic wage is way below
subsistence and workers are totally dependent on premium bonuses and overtime
payment. (The minimum wage, which only a minority of the workforce can claim
anyway, is less than £1 an hour.) Giving the bosses a free hand to sack
workers, replace strikers and ignore the new unions would swell the army of the
unemployed and crush the hopes of those organising the fight for a better deal.
Not for nothing does the hymn of the KCTU - "Workers of
Iron" - swear revenge for the "blood and sweat" that has been
wrung from them. This strike hardly appeared out of a clear blue sky of harmonious
class relations. There had been many an earlier strike struggle - against the
gruelling hours and arduous conditions, for decent pay and for national
insurance cover. (In 1996 industrial disputes had already cost the employers
over $3billion). Almost without exception, strike battles have been met with
heavy police action - beatings, arrests, the imprisonment and sacking of the
leaders. Now there was no alternative but to make a stand; the workers' unions
and their very capacity to fight back were on the line - not only because of
the changes to the labour laws.
Other changes pushed through the Assembly that December
morning, restored to the hated NSPA (National Security Planning Agency,
previously the Korean CIA) the wide-ranging powers of surveillance and
interrogation it had exercised with such cruelty under the military dictators.
South Korea must have the most repressive and paranoic regime of any so-called
advanced country. Hundreds of trade unionists, socialists and student activists
still languish in South Korean jails. Torture in police cells continues. Leaders
of the movement, at factory, campus or national level seem resigned to the fact
that a spell in prison is 'par for the course'. But the international labour
movement, if it is anything, must shout from the roof-tops about it.
A solidarity campaign must be taken to the activists in the
unions and workers' political organisations world-wide. The tops of the
international trade unions are remote in income and lifestyle from the workers
they are supposed to represent and seem to have suddenly discovered the
horrific abuse of democratic rights in Korea. Enough of their delegations
flying in like dignitaries with the cameramen, staying in expensive hotels,
making their speeches and flying out again! The Korean workers need genuine solidarity
from their own kind, not the grandiose pledges of international 'leaders' whose
track-records show them to be more interested in making peace with the
employers than in supporting strikes. It just so happens that their political
counterparts in the Social Democratic, Labour or "Socialist" parties
of the world have been prominent amongst the worshippers of the South Korean
"miracle".
Special Factors
The phenomenal economic expansion - which took South Korea
from the level of a Ghana in 1960 to 11th place in the world league
of industrialised nations - has nothing to do with the free play of market
forces. It has everything to do with a combination of special factors which
cannot simply be engineered or copied by other would-be "tigers" -
the huge injection of resources by world imperialism to stave off the
elimination of capitalism in the region, the extraordinary involvement of the
state in creating a class of monopoly owners and its unfettered use of terror
tactics to try and hold back the demands of a super-exploited working class.
The enormous 'advantages' enjoyed by Korean capitalism are
now turning into their opposite. What were its strengths have now become its
weaknesses. Its foundations are riddled with contradictions that could prove
its downfall. Far from defying the laws of capitalist development worked out by
Karl Marx and others, Korean capitalism has already demonstrated their
validity. It has shown itself incapable of avoiding the crises endemic in the
system.
If workers in the factories of Korea, after a decade and
more of struggle, now receive higher wages than those working for the same
firms in Poland or in Wales - and this is far from proven hour for hour - this
is not the reason for the problems they face today. They have generated
enormous wealth for the owners of the giant 'Chaebol' conglomerates that
dominate the economy. But these new capitalists have not been carrying out the
'traditional' role of investing to keep their machinery up to date. They have
not been constantly 'revolutionising the meansof production', as Marx put it.
Appearing late on the scene as a class and, again for
special reasons, being given a 'helping hand' by the Japanese older brother,
South Korean capitalism got used to using production techniques developed
elsewhere. It made great progress for a whole period without spending much on
research and development. In spite its reputation for being extremely 'modern'
and 'high tech', Korean capitalism lags behind with its technology.
Productivity or output per worker remains much lower than that of most of its rivals
and is just half that of Japan. Vast sums have been spent on equipment, but it
is out-dated often before it goes into operation. As much as 30% lies idle as
the economy runs out of steam.
Through the new legislation, the Chaebol and their political
mouthpieces are simply demanding once again that workers pay with more of their
blood and sweat for Korean products to become competitive again in the world
market-place. They throw at them the arguments about 'globalisation' and the
threat to their hard-earned living standards from cheaper labour elsewhere.
They try to intimidate them into accepting lower wages and labour standards and
hide their own hypocrisy and naked greed. The South Korean Chaebol are
themselves already up to their necks in the global economy, using all kinds of
methods to undercut their competitors' market share as well as the old trick of
playing one country's workers off against another.
The double figure growth rates of the late 1980s (12% in
1986, 15% in 1987) were not achieved without enormous human cost. The ten-hour
day, the six day week is still the norm for male and female workers alike.
Longer shifts and 'Third World' working and living conditions are the lot of millions.
Korean capitalism has come into the world dripping with blood. It is the worst
country in the world for industrial accidents and diseases. Activists put
things graphically: "At least six lorry-loads of fingers are severed each
year". Every day seven workers are killed in work. Still unidentified thousands
are dying from incurable afflictions contracted at work or from the barely
checked poisoning of the air, the earth, the seas and the rivers.
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 women’s 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 for 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 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".
THE “HIGH-TECH GENERAL STRIKE"
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
Myong Dong 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".
"Second Wave"
January 3rd saw a resurgence of the general strike with
46 unions - in ship-building, heavy engineering, chemicals and, of course, the
car factories participating in what was called the "First phase escalation
of the second wave of the general strike" yet, the KCTU complains, the
Ministry of Labour is constantly issuing press reports "radically down-sizing
the strength of the strike". On January 4th important rallies took
place in all the major cities and the strike was indeed escalating back to its
pre-holiday level.
By January 6th the strike figures were again nearing the
200,000 mark. The continuing strike campaign began to stimulate other social
organisations. The National Council of Churches in Korea called a meeting of 52
regional human rights committees to set up a pan-Christian 'task force' for the
re-amendment of the labour laws. A national body of catholic priests decided to
hoist placards in church compounds making them available as sanctuary to striking
workers. A Buddhist monks' organisation also formed an 'emergency task force'.
The 'Association of Lawyers for a Democratic Society' made
an official application for access to all the relevant records of the
extraordinary session of the National Assembly which had seen the "commando-style
passage of the problematic bills". The 'University Professors' Association
for Democracy' began a petition campaign to collect 2,000 signatures among
their colleagues. Similar efforts were being undertaken by medical practitioners,
"cultural artists" and pharmacists. For the first time in this strike,
the unions of insurance, stock and security companies started to participate.
But it was on the 6th January that two
"well-built policemen" barged into the KCTU offices to serve summonses
on its leaders. They made no arrests but, by the evening of the next day, a
total of 217 trade union activists in different parts of the country had been
summoned for questioning by the public prosecutors. The 8pm television news
indicated that they were going to apply for arrest warrants the next day.
Acting on a tip-off from a sympathetic reporter that their offices were about
to be raided and searched, the KCTU leaders removed important documents and
computers to 'safe houses'.
At 5 am on 7th January union members at the four major
television and radio networks walked off the job. Later in the day, as the
'Campaign News' puts it, "The familiar faces who brighten the television screens
were out on the streets or in the park, mingling with the technicians or
uniformed workers from the factories and the white-collar workers from the
Stock Exchange - all of them singing songs together. Today's demonstration,
some 15,000 strong, left the Jongmyo Park quickly and dispersed in groups of tens
and twenties to a hundred different local centres in Seoul for public awareness
raising sessions."
The KCTU newspaper department had printed one million copies
of a special strike edition. Workers took bundles of the newspaper, together
with leaflets and petitions to shopping centres, department stores, subway and
railway stations to "meet the general public". Similar campaigns were
repeated in 20 regional centres from the southernmost Cheju-do Island to the
northernmost cities of Kangwon-do province, "with their snow-capped
mountains in the background". The next day in Chullabuk-do province,
strikers went to rural villages hit by heavy snowfall to assist in the recovery
work. Other members from the industrial estates, zones and complexes conducted
a clean-up campaign in nearby "environmentally distressed" areas.
The 8th January, as the KCTU's narrative explains, "Saw
the full entry of the white-collar workers into the strike". This will, it
is believed, set the stage for the re-enactment of the great June democratic struggle
in 1987, which "catapulted" into a massive democratic uprising led by
the "neck-tie corps".
On the 9th of January, protest rallies were organised
throughout the country in front of branch offices of the New Korea Party and
Friday, 10th January, was designated a day of protest against the
"thief government". There was much speculation as to whether the
FKTU, which had "left the strike trail" for more than two weeks,
would postpone yet again its resumption of industrial action. At present it was
promising to bring all its members out on January 13th.
International Solidarity
The 10th January had been chosen by the KCTU as a day
for international solidarity action. Pickets were held outside embassies,
consulates and Korea Airline offices in up to 30 countries. The federation's leader,
Kwon Yong-kil, had written an eloquent appeal sent out to international trade
union organisations and the Internet. It opened with: “Warmest greetings to
melt all the snow and cold of this extraordinary winter" and finished:
"With a renewed appreciation of the power of international solidarity",
Late on the 9th of January, police raids had been carried
out on a number of KCTU headquarters including those of the metal-workers,
hospital workers and automobile workers. Thousands of riot police raided the
central KCTU offices at 12.30am the following night. Undaunted, the KCTU was calling
for "the biggest strike in the nation's history" on 14th-15th January
and the Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU) had at last announced that it would
rejoin the action.
On the demos
The 11th January Seoul demonstration, like many others,
ended with violence. An eye-witness account was posted on the internet by
someone describing herself as a "foreign traveller" :- "A
crowd of people wearing the familiar red headbands was making its way to Pagoda
Park. It was full of young and old alike, mothers and fathers with their
children, high school students and a number of nuns and monks. The atmosphere was
jubilant and energised (like a Korean company "team building' day). The 'Ajummas'
(the older married Korean women) were busy selling their lamayon (noodles) and
fish while the 'Ajossi' (the elder married men) were drinking coffee or soju.
It felt like a picnic.
"A group of young women were nurses from one of Seoul's
largest hospitals. Their major concerns were unreasonable lay-offs, irregular
schedules, extended work time and the ability of the employer to transfer them
to any hospital at any time. They felt that the demonstration was powerful,
cheerful, and most of all, they felt safe. A medical insurance man felt (it) was
a turning point, a joint protest with labour and Seoul citizens. On a platform
high above the listening and participating audience, two men representing
communication workers were having their heads shaved (a traditional way of
displaying dedication to a cause).
"Throughout the afternoon a large contingent of about
500 riot police stood by with shields, weapons and face guards, looking as if
they were waiting for something to happen. The crowd left the park and began to
emerge on the busy street. Soon the traffic had been stopped and the smell of
tear gas began to filter through the air. A few rocks were thrown by the crowd,
then an announcement was made by the police. They must disperse from the street
as this was now an illegal demonstration, Instead, the crowd started coming
towards the police. More rocks were thrown and more tear gas fired. At one time
the crowd managed to surround the riot police."
A young English teacher in Chong-ju wrote in a letter to her
parents :- "Last weekend I joined a local demonstration. A Korean woman
(teacher) asked me as many questions as I did her. She was inspired that a
foreigner joined and supported the demonstration. They're expected to work 55
hours a week and are calling for an eight-hour day. They work six days a week,
so that's still 48 hours.
"The Korean labour movement anthem is so moving -
The Marching Song for You - so uplifting. I had chills down my spine and tears
in my eyes. The strikers' chants are about 'Protecting democracy' and 'Killing
dictators'. They don't mince their words here. And they are all wearing
head-bands that read: "Fight - Unification - Victory.'
"More workers are joining each day. Today (Wednesday
15) the suit-clad office workers have joined in. Myong Dong, the most expensive
shopping area of Seoul, has been the scene of daily riots and the police and
army aren't shy with the tear gas!"
On the two days of joint action the KCTU claimed 420,000
struck work and its rally in Seoul on 15th January was the
biggest so far with 60,000 participating. But the KCTU members were demonstrating
in Yoido Square while the FKTU members had assembled separately at
Jongmyo Park. It would not be until January 26th that the leaders of both union
federations would stand together before the massed ranks of a joint
demonstration.
Arrests, attempted arrests and arguments
Attempts were still being made to deliver summonses and
arrest trade union leaders - some of them successful. A letter circulated by
the 'Han Nuri' internet service reported to the world that three strike leaders
at Han-la Heavy Industry Co. had been taken into custody on 15th January. A special
'task-force' of police had also been formed to pursue the leaders of the
Hyundai Federation of Unions - each of them promised promotion by one rank for
the arrest of any of them. Threats were even being made against the
international trade union delegation visiting Seoul for 'supporting an illegal strike'
and for 'interfering in the country's affairs'. If they did not refrain from
speaking at rallies etc. they would find themselves deported.
So far, the 'wanted' KCTU Executive Committee members were
still safe in their camp on the hill. Visits by law enforcement officers had
been easily repulsed. They had not come in large numbers and the government had
not decided whether it could run the risk of creating martyrs. Whenever a mass movement
threatens the authority of the ruling class, it is torn between repression and
concession.
Ruling party chairman, Li Hung-koo, had announced he was
seeking the intervention of Cardinal Stephen Kim Souhwan, a well-known mediator
on such occasions, to come to the aid of the party and help settle the crisis
peacefully. But he had insisted in the same breath that the labour laws must stay,
essential as they were in "helping the nation's economic recovery".
This was simply a repeat of the line taken by the president in his New Year
address on 7th January which had so angered the striking workers. They had been
told that the "sacrifices must be shared" and that "workers in
advanced countries like France, USA, Germany don't strike".
It was clear however that the president and his men were
becoming jittery. Opinion polls showed public support for the strike still
increasing - from just over 50% on the first day, now in the region of 80%-85%.
The previously tame and compliant Federation of Korean Trade Unions had joined
in the action once more, bringing the combined total of strikers to over one
million. The FKTU leadership had given no commitment to participate further in
the strike but its ranks were being infected by the enthusiasm and determination
expressed by the members of the rival federation.
Kim Young-sam was perfectly aware that arresting the KCTU
leaders would inflame the situation; but lifting the warrants would be a sign
of weakness and a humiliation. His indecision reflects the splits developing at
the top of Korean society which in turn have the effect of emboldening the
movement. It is now, more than three weeks into the strike, that the president
considers inviting the leaders of the two main opposition parties to his
residence – the Blue House - for talks. After this meeting of "The Three
Kims" (Young-sam, Dae-jung and Jong-pil) he will promise to lift the
arrest warrants and to contemplate amendment of the labour laws.
Audacity of the movement
There are still arrests and injuries on the demonstrations
and now a second worker's life hangs in the balance after he has resorted to
one of the most extreme forms of protest - self-immolation - setting himself on
fire. In a number of places, company thugs have been sent in against picketing workers
some of whom lie in hospital with broken noses and ribs. But each day brings
news of little local victories that feed the confidence and audacity of the
movement. In this 'high-tech' general strike, a video team is recording every
event in the strike. Operating as they do, under the wing of the KCTU and the
"Task Force" (NCPD), their material is used for keeping up the morale
of the strikers and spreading the news the bosses' media hide.
'Workers' News Productions ' is a veteran but youthful team
that has made no fewer than 20 tapes on the history of the democratic workers'
movement since 1987. They combine intrepid filming with inventive ways of
presenting the propaganda of the workers' movement. One of the tapes, for
example, shows footage run backwards of the president and his men walking
together somewhere. This is a metaphor, writes an explanation in English, to
show that the president and the government are "not going forward but are going
back", It also shows Kim Young-sam's' inaugural ceremony in 1993 when he elaborated
all his "hopeful remarks and rosy promises" to the people and then
catalogues the disasters in which hundreds of people were killed - the collapse
of the Sungsu Bridge and the Sampoong Department Store and the Taegu gas
explosion – all the result of bribery scandals involving political and economic
figures and a total abuse of public authority.
The two videos about the latest movement show some of the
most colourful and dramatic scenes of the strike struggle. They show the
workers of the notorious Masan and Changwon export zone fighting the riot
police and disarming them – putting their shields, batons and tear-gas rifles
in a pile and making them sit or kneel meekly in a circle. It shows workers in
Chonjoo piercing their fingers and writing with their own blood their demands
for the nullification of the labour law. It shows effigies being burnt in
Kyoungjoo and a traditional funeral ceremony for the New Korea Party in
Kyoungkeedo. The teams of volunteer guards at the entrance to Myong Dong
Cathedral grounds are shown doing their 24 hour shifts in temperatures as low
as minus15 degrees. "They don't mind their difficulties because they are
protecting the KCTU leaders from the fear of arrest" runs the explanation
sheet to reassure its international "customers". (The video, like
numerous audio tapes of the songs of the movement, is sold and sent world-wide
to raise funds as well as support for the strikers and their campaign).
RUNNERS IN THE MARATHON
It was beside a kerosene stove in one of the make-shift
tents at the Cathedral refuge that Yoon Young-mo, the International Secretary
of the KCTU, explained how things stood on 16th January as the strike went into
its fourth week.
"We have been regulating the intensity and pace of our
struggle. It is not a 100 metre race. It's not even a 400 metre or a mile race.
It's a marathon. Certain days we go on full strike, like yesterday when we had the
telecommunication workers out for the first time and subway workers for the
second time.
"There were rallies in 15 different areas with a
total of 200,000 on the streets. In Seoul we had permits for the march, but the
size probably scared the government and the police. They turned it into a bit of
chaos by blocking the marchers and forcing them to disperse by firing tear gas
into the crowd.
"They use everything, sometimes even clubs with nails
stuck in them. They have at least three types of tear gas - one fired from a
vehicle with 64 canisters launched at the same time creating a lot of sound. Another
one is fired from a gun and they usually fire it horizontally instead of into
the air - aiming at people. Another is a fire extinguisher-like sprayer that
sprays into people's faces causing you to vomit immediately.
"The police have a huge presence in the area all the
time ... it is hard to imagine just how many. They are assigned to places where
it is difficult to see them, they've got bus-loads waiting to come in at any
time, large rows standing everywhere.
"If they came in to arrest us people here would make
as much resistance as possible. They came before just to issue the warrants -
one or two people. If they come in for the real thing they will come in
thousands. It could only be violent if there is resistance. But it is very much
a political decision whether they come in or not. It's not a military raid
decision to be made by a field commander. It can only be made by Kim Young-sam.
"There are some signs of panicking within the government
itself - different signals. Some people in the ruling party are talking about
more moderate action, dialogue. But it is a government that is completely out
of touch with the people.
"A question of completing the task that was begun in
1987? Yes, of course! But the problem (then) was we were not able to take what
we had achieved for ourselves. This is the first time in history that we have
got something that will stay with us and that is the KCTU"
Strike scaled down but public support still mounting
The independent union federation was enjoying enormous
popular support and the organised working class was regarded with great respect
as the force which would determine the future course of events. It was at this
moment, however, that the leaders decided on a tactical 'pause' in the battle
and scaled the strikes down to once a week – every Wednesday. They also
announced plans for demonstrations and rallies to take place throughout the
country on Saturdays, designated "Days with the People". But anger in
all quarters against the government remained unabated. In some ways it was
growing greater. The impact of the strike itself had given workers a sense of
their own power. They were beginning to feel their organised will was invincible.
Why then was the struggle now taken into a lower gear?
"Struggle Flash" - a strike bulletin produced by
the NCPD ("Task Force") and posted on the internet reports a
"heightened mood of tension amongst the unit unions in each firm". As
of 17th January, KCTU leaders from 42 unions in eight different
industries - a total of 399 have been sued or summonsed. The riot police have
already arrested 300 people at legally approved rallies. 21 people have been seriously
injured. For example, Cho Young-yong of Ulsan's Hyundai Motors had to have 56
stitches in a head wound. Kung Jae-koo from Asia Motors was hospitalised for
surgery to his eye.
But on 18th January the bulletin's headlines were just as
'up-beat' with news of support still flooding in: "Various social groups
wave their hands of support and solidarity". 849 writers had told Kim Young-sam
to "stop blind-walking" and condemned the government's response to
the workers as "obnoxious and nasty". 3,551 members of Seoul National
University all its lecturers, undergraduates, graduates, alumni and professors
- had signed a statement protesting that "What President Kim was trying to
restore was not the economy but dictatorship."
Fifteen Catholic priests had set up a tent alongside the
KCTU leaders at the cathedral and launched a campaign distributing stickers
saying, "We have chosen the wrong president" and "I hate
civilian dictatorship". Other priests - in Chun-gu - leaving a mass they
had held for the "repentance" of the Kim Young-sam regime, had found
their path blocked by the riot police. "We went through the barricades (only)
when union members assembled around the procession, surrounded the police and
broke down the barricades after a heavy scuffle".
Workers everywhere - on strike or not on strike - were on
the march - defying bans, defeating police and carrying on with their
demonstrations peacefully. In Taegu there was a rally of textile workers
demanding the arrest of the boss of Sampoong - a local factory - because of his
"murderous assaults". After the rally they marched to a local police
station. Then they organised a "night of unity" among workers of the
dyeing industry, and proceeded through the city with candles in hand. Night
marches are strictly speaking illegal but that wasn't stopping them breaking
out all over the country.
NCPD gathers strength
The NCPD "News Flash" also reported on its own press
conference of 17th January at which it was announced that the number of
local divisions set up since 26th December now totals 56. From many regions,
even where there were no branches, data and news of activities were being
constantly requested.
Park Seok-woon, one of the NCPD's best known organisers, was
speaking later that day at an opposition "symposium" in a plush
auditorium at the parliament building. "The opposition parties," he
said, addressing himself to some of their leaders in the hall, "Maintain
that 'the people are not ready for this fight', but "the people' are all
already involved in it. The only ones who are not are the Chaebol
(bosses)". He described the work of his organisation. "No less than
200 campaign teams go out every day distributing leaflets, collecting signatures,
raising funds and selling protest postcards (at ten times their cost)"
Indeed, their temporary headquarters in Hyanglin Church
Hall, down a narrow, back street in Myong Dong, is like a revolutionary nerve
centre – again "high-tech". A whole bank of computers is in use all the
time. With these and with mobile phones, close contact is maintained with the
areas and an impressive level of information and propaganda isproduced.
Leaflets, results of opinion polls, plans for raising awareness, bulletins are
e-mailed and faxed backwards and forwards. Circles of young people ("warriors"
as Park calls them) earnestly discuss the day's activity and their
responsibilities. Others prepare billboards or large collecting boxes and stack
them up. Groups go out with their portable tables and come back hours later to
warm up beside the stoves. Volunteers stay overnight, curled up in sleeping
bags on a small stage. Others work on into the small hours, like those who
translate and despatch the "Struggle Flash Strike News".
Grim testimony at Myong Dong
Nearly four weeks after the movement had erupted, public
opinion was still preventing the state forces from going in to arrest the seven
KCTU leaders at Myong Dong cathedral. But attacks on the unions at a local
level continued. Hukkoku is a notoriously anti-union Japanese-owned firm. In
the past six months two leaders there had been jailed, 40 workers sacked and
"punished" in one way or another. Now strikers had been beaten up by
the kusadae, a special breed of Korean mafia-type gangsters often hired
by Chaebol owners to 'soften up' their work-force.
An agitated Hukkoku worker was visiting the KCTU camp
looking for help:
"Newspapers who are Chaebol-owned don't print anything
about our plight," he said with exasperation. "Even the 'progressive'
Hankyure is frightened of losing its advertising revenue. So we collected six
million won ourselves and paid for a half-page appeal in the paper on the 15th
January. "On the twelfth day of the strike, we had been gathering at the
factory gate to go to the central rally when the managers and 20 gangsters,
Korean Mafia, employed by the company, launched a terror attack on the workmen.
Result - three persons with broken ribs and one with a broken nose. Another 40
were injured, seven hospitalised. "And now the company wants the trade
union's leader to pay 408 million won for damage in the clash. The trade union
is saying to the police, the prosecutor, the city hall, the land administration
to investigate and punish. But they did not have any action. We want something
done about this employer, internationally if possible, especially through the unions
in Japan".
Foreign journalists visiting Myong Dong were also given a
rough hand-out about the self-immolation in Ulsan of 33 year-old union
activist, Chung Jae-sung:
“On 10th January, after a rally at the Taewha riverside,
Hyundai Motor Company trade unionists and their families marched towards the
city's centre. The police shot teargas and blocked the way. Mr Chung was at the
front of the march. He shouted: "You steal the democracy; do not block the
march!' But the police continued ... This is paint thinner," he shouted.
'If you do not retreat I will burn myself to death!' But riot police continued
to block (the way). Suddenly, Mr Chung threw the paint-thinner onto his body
and (set) fire (to) himself. His body became burning. He shouted 'Struggle!', "His
comrades wanted the police to hand over the fire extinguisher but they did not.
They shot more tear-gas. They didn't call the fire emergency car. His friends
called the fire station - 119 - with telephone borrowed from near shop. His
body trembling, he shouts: 'Down with the anti-workers law!" "He is
brought to (the local) hospital and then moved to Seoul. 25% of his skin was
burnt with 2 and 3 degrees. At the hospital he shouts: "The bad bills must
be defeated!"”
After the incident, Hyundai management shut down the
factory, On 30th January there was a demonstration "In hope for Mr Chung's
quick recovery". Though he will always suffer from constant, debilitating
pain, Chung Jae-sung's life is no longer in danger. Nevertheless, to his
chagrin, most of the hated labour laws which drove him to take such drastic
action remain on the statute books.
"Not a 100 metre race"
The struggle of the Korean movement is indeed a "marathon".
The 'runners' make this clear in their own words in interview after interview.
There are those introduced by the energetic Kim Young-kon of the National
Association of Labour Movement Organisations (NALMO) in his tent, a little down
the hill from those of the KCTU leadership. There are the participants of the
numerous mass demos and the organisers of the unions and the support campaigns.
And there are the students - often first into the struggle
and a barometer of discontent and unrest. So far, this time round, they have
been noticeably absent, most of them still on their long winter holiday. They
have been participating in the movement here and there as individuals, with
just the occasional small demonstration of the students still on campus
organised by one or another group.
But a feature in one of the left papers gives a clue as to
what has happened to the legendary South Korean student movement. Chung
Young-ki, the president of the largest student organisation - Hanchongryon (the
Korean Federation of University Student Councils) - was in hiding from the
police. His organisation had over a million members but had suffered enormously
at the hands of the state since last August when it organised an 'illegal' Festival
in the grounds of Yonsei University to commemorate Korea's liberation from
Japanese rule and discuss the sensitive issue of re-unification.
Then, under orders from Kim Young-sam, the riot police had
laid siege to the university for nine days - a massive force of 21,000 plus
5,000 special officers. They bombarded the students with tear-gas from helicopters,
stopped all supplies of food, medicine, water and electricity. They picked up
people who just happened to be in the area near the university, beat them up
and sexually assaulted young women. When, eventually, the police moved in on
the students they went for anyone and everyone. Nearly 6,000 were corralled and
taken to the police cells where they were interrogated and many of them badly
tortured. As of January 1997, 357 students were still in jail, some with long
sentences to serve out.
The authorities have refused to renovate the five-storey
general building where the students had been holed up until the final battle.
They are leaving it with all its smashed windows and charred doorways fenced
off as a reminder and a warning to all students not to get caught up in
left-wing politics. Three women undergraduates who had watched the whole police
operation in horror from their hostel windows explained how these tactics, and
the mood of shock that pervaded the university afterwards, had temporarily
succeeded.
"The students at Yonsei have been frightened into electing
a moderate, apolitical leader as president. But let's hope it's only a
temporary setback. How can we rest easy while our friends are still being held?
And also, our own prospects of getting a job are narrowing by the day, even
when we graduate with good results. Naturally we identify with the present struggles
of workers against flexibility and increasing unemployment. We want them to win
this one".
Organising and striking
At the Myong Dong camp, NALMO's Kim Young-kon was optimistic
about the struggle. He explained which workers come under which trade union federations.
"Construction and hospital workers, car workers and clerical workers are
with the KCTU. The bankworkers came over 'en bloc' from the FKTU. Railworkers,
postal workers and some transport workers, some subway and bus workers are
still in the FKTU. "The situation with the telecom workers is complicated.
The national chair of the union said 'no'
to all-out strike action this winter although the KTTU became affiliated
to the KCTU four years ago. It is a national union but was badly weakened after
the big battles of 1995, when it took on Korea Telecom. Before then it had 87
full-timers but now has only thirty seven. The employers, who have 'traditionally'
paid the wages of union full-timers, took revenge for their defeat and refused
to pay any more."
Things are even more difficult in Korea's massive but
shrinking garment industry. Yang II-seok is a 25-year-old full-timer for the
Chunggye Garment Workers' Union. He is responsible for finance in the union and
was himself trained as a cutter.
"The average wage in our trade is around one million
won (just over $1,000) a month but can go up to around 1,300,000. For
machinists on piece-work, it can reach nearer 2 million. That is in the periods
of intensive work - going hard at it from 9am to 9pm. But there can be six
months of lay-off”. "Even on the higher wage it is difficult to live throughout
the year on that money. If there is lay-off in the export side of the industry,
then people try to find work in the middle-sized companies who do work for the
home market and pay much less (although it used to be the other way round) ...
There is no new hiring at the moment; there's been a big reduction in the work
force. Young people see it as '3D' work - dirty, dangerous and difficult. "Union
dues are 10,000 won a month. The full-timers get 250-300,000 - about a third of
the average wage or even less. We're involved in setting up our own co-op to
get more money for the union. There are three branches in Seoul but only a few
hundred members these days. We cover about 30,000 in the Chunggye area out of a
total of 200,000 garment workers. One of our main aims is io form a Seoul area Textile
and Garment trade union but as yet that is illegal."
Organising in the small sub-contractors' sweatshops is still
an uphill struggle. Things have changed since 1970 when the workers' hero Chun
Tae-il threw himself as a protest from a bridge in the Chunggye 'Peace Market',
burning to death and demanding justice for the young women enslaved in the
industry. But ten- and 12-hour days in the dust and heat of machine rooms,
stuffed to the roofs with made and half-made clothes, does no good to the health
or family life of the still mainly female workforce. Thousands produce goods
for the same big 'names' but are deliberately divided into units of less than
five employees through a system of sub-contracting. This ensures they are not
covered by any employment law and will be afraid of joining a union, let alone
striking, for fear of losing their jobs.
In the hospitals, the independent unions have had more luck.
Hyun Chung-hee is chair of the Seoul National University hospital workers'
branch. She was calling in at the union camp.
"With two thousand workers, our medical centre is the
largest in Korea ... I was a nurse before I was elected to the full-time
position ... We took strike action for 15 days ... 1,200 would attend the daily
meetings - that is all except those providing the emergency cover. We will be
coming out again on 18th February," she said with great pride, "along
with everyone else". Her pager beeped, she apologised, made her farewells
and rushed away.
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? TheInternational 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 partyin 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.
Fight to the finish
Those who participated in this winter's great protest feel a
huge sense of pride and achievement in making the "first-ever political
general strike". They have shown their strength and tested their powers of
organisation. The unions and their fighting capacity remained more or less intact
and everyone was aware of the enormous damage inflicted on the government,
reeling possibly beyond redemption.
But now, although Hanbo has shown up the rottenness of the
system they are fighting and Hwang's defection has sparked a debate that will clarify
many things in their minds, they feel deprived of a fight to the finish.
The KCTU leadership not only did not bring forward the next
round of strikes, but, in the event, postponed it on the pretext of giving the parliamentarians
more time. But the decision was probably based on a feeling that it was no
longer possible to achieve all-out action. More forceful and fuller action
earlier on would have achieved greater results, regardless of whether the
National Assembly had been convened or not.
Parliament was only reopened on 17th February. A week
after its congress, the KCTU was no longer demanding the complete repeal of the
law but announced a list of ten "conditions" that had to be met by
changes to the law. Hundreds of teachers’ union members moved in and occupied
the headquarters of opposition parties to persuade them to take up their case.
(In 1989, 1,500 teachers had been sacked and permanently black-listed for organising
the Teachers' Union and Kim Young-sam himself had once demonstrated for their reinstatement
and the legalisation of the KTU. They are still waiting.)
Public indignation was mounting at the rapidly concluded and
insufficient investigations into the $6 billion Hanbo loan scandal. Top bankers
and ruling party politicians were being arrested and sent to jail along with
the Chaebol's owner. One of them seemed to be aiming his remarks at the very
top when he claimed as he went down that he was "only a feather" in
the affair. The question on everyone's lips (and in many a cartoonist's
picture) was "Where is the body (of the bird)?" - is it the
president's son or the president himself?
In the last few days of February, the KCTU organised daily
sit-down protests by about 1,000 individual and federation union leaders from
2pm-6pm in front of the parliament building. When broader action was eventually
called - for Friday 28th February, it amounted to half-day or four-hour strikes
and city and workplace demonstrations. In some of Ulsan's giant factories, for
example, the action took the form of a 'rolling' strike – each department at a
time and then only for an hour. The following week, no action was planned or
taken.
The strike which had broken with such explosive force had,
at least temporarily, lost its momentum. Whether it could be regained - in
March or in May, remained to be seen. For now, many activists felt the important
thing was to concentrate on building up the unions' strength in the workplaces
through the collective bargaining process and move towards setting up some kind
of party that could carry the struggle on in the political arena.
In the longer run, and with a skilful leadership, these South Korean workers will show the world that no diversion will be allowed to stand in the way of an all out struggle to transform society. The mighty conflict between the classes was by no means over; it did not start only in December 1996 and too much lay behind it for half-measures to be sufficient to bring it to an end. At different times it has been and will be conducted by different means – industrial struggles, political struggles, uprisings. But why do feelings run so deep? Why have so many working people been prepared to risk so much in a trial of strength with their rulers - government and Chaebol? Can socialist ideas find an echo, develop a physical force?
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