Korea Strikers Expand Fight Over Antilabor Law

By Brian Taylor, The Militant, Vol.61 no.4, 27 January 1997

January 15 was the biggest day yet as protest strikes in south Korea entered their fourth week. Union officials say 630,000 workers participated in the strike that day, and tens of thousands flooded the streets of Seoul and other cities demanding the repeal of antilabor laws adopted by the legislature December 26.

The Associated Press described a confrontation between 40,000 demonstrators and thousands of riot police in downtown Seoul, the capital. Cops in armored vans threatened to arrest strike leaders and fired volley after volley of tear gas into the crowd. Protesters ripped up the sidewalk, broke it into fist sized concrete chunks and hurled them at police, the news agency reported. Because police fired rapid volleys of tear gas, protesters were unable to get close enough to hit them with their steel pipes.

Kim Yong Sam step down! many of the protesters chanted, referring to the president. His ruling New Korea Party rammed the package of antilabor laws through the National Assembly at a predawn meeting December 26 without any opposition legislators present. The measures make it easier for employers to lay off workers and replace strikers. They maintain a ban on the Federation of Democratic Unions, the second largest labor federation in the country. And another provision grants expanded powers to Seoul’s political police.

Walkouts demanding the repeal of these laws began just hours after they were passed. The bosses argue that the new laws are necessary to give companies the flexibility to compete on world markets and help build the slowing south Korean economy.

As they have done throughout the strike, the south Korean rulers are downplaying its impact. Seoul claimed just 110,000 workers were out January 15, less than a fifth of the union’s figures.

The Wall Street Journal, which has generally belittled the actions, admitted that public support lies with the strikers.

The labor law only reflects what big business wants, commented Huh In Sook, a 44-year-old woman observing the demonstration in Seoul. An opinion poll cited in the January 11 Financial Times stated, 87 per cent of Koreans believe the new laws should be repealed, while 54 percent support the strikes.

Workers at one of the two subway systems in Seoul went out January 15, the 21st day of the actions. Many manufacturing plants were also paralyzed by the strike. The day before, about two-thirds of the 87,000 taxicab drivers joined the strike, along with bank employees, who carried out half-day work stoppages. Auto workers and shipbuilders are at the core of the fight, in a country that is the sixth largest auto producer and fills a third of the world’s shipping orders.

Officials of the Federation of Democratic Unions said they expected 350,000 more workers to join the strike January 15.

The unions had set a deadline of January 14 for the government to rescind the antilabor laws, or see an expanded strike. As the deadline approached, thousands of strikers, students, and others took part in street protests, often confronting the cops. Some 20,000 workers at Hyundai Motor Co. in the southern industrial city of Ulsan defied a company lockout and held a rally inside their plant January 13.

The next day 3,000 bank clerks marched in downtown Seoul denouncing the Kim regime. Throw the evil law in the garbage can! they shouted. On January 12, about 3,000 workers and students clashed with riot police who were trying to block a march from the Myongdong Cathedral, where union officials are based, to a downtown shopping district. Cops went through the crowds clubbing protesters. Right before this action 2,000 workers held a protest against the new laws at the cathedral.

The president sent ruling party chairman Lee Hong Koo to the Myongdong Cathedral January 13, to try to get the strike called off. Get out! Get out! workers yelled, swarming around him. Lee challenged Kwon Young Kil and other union leaders to a television debate on the new antilabor laws. Kwon rejected the challenge, calling it a ploy and reaffirmed that workers would not compromise.

Despite numerous threats, only one union leader was arrested January 14.

The bosses are turning up the pressure for workers to end their walkout. Hyundai Heavy Industries has threatened to withhold strikers’ annual bonuses, a major chunk of annual wages. Hyundai Motors announced a lockout and suspension of its operations, which means workers will not be paid. At one medical center 200 workers reportedly returned to work on threats of expulsion.

Despite the increased number of strikers out, the growing demonstrations, and the loss of over $2 billion since the strike began, the big-business press insists that somehow the strike is slackening. Still, the Wall Street Journal admitted, the strikes and daily rallies have dragged on far longer than business and government officials expected... putting more pressure on the government to end the controversy.

Choi Byong Kuk, a south Korean senior prosecutor, accused the north Korean government in Pyongyang of inciting the strike actions. His supposed evidence is that the Korean Central News Agency in the north is running daily reports on the strikes. This, Choi argues, is agitational. If workers do not stop their illegal strikes immediately, the government will act in a firm and resolute way to protect national security, he said.

Record of Kim Young Sam regime Kim Young Sam took office in 1993, and has sought to promote an image as bringing democracy to Korea. He has faced protests from students and workers, though, that give lie to this. Last April, just prior to the National Assembly elections, 10,000 students held an antigovernment rally in Seoul protesting the death of Roh Soo Sok, a student demonstrator who was beaten by cops the week before. Kim’s New Korea Party lost its majority in the assembly in the April vote, though it has been able to get enough votes from independent legislators to rule.

Following years of protests, Kim’s presidential predecessors, Roh Tae Woo and Chun Doo Hwan, were found guilty last summer for their role in a 1979 coup and subsequent military repression, especially the massacre of hundreds of student demonstrators by soldiers in 1980 at Kwangju. They were also convicted on corruption charges for accepting millions of dollars in bribes. Chun, who seized power in 1979, was sentenced to death. Roh, who ran the Seoul regime from 1988 to 1993, received a 22-year prison term. Hundreds of thousands of youth and workers had participated in the boycotts, strikes, and rallies demanding that the two be punished.

Since Kim came into office, political repression and the denial of democratic rights has continued. In the demonstrations aimed at the ex-presidents, for instance, riot cops were sent out by the thousands to physically break up protests.

The regime, like every government in the south for the last half century, maintains close ties with Washington. Some 37,000 U.S. troops are based in south Korea, many along the so-called demilitarized zone that has divided the peninsula in two since the U.S.-led Korean War, which left 4 million people dead. U.S. and south Korean forces regularly carry out joint military exercises provocatively directed against Pyongyang.

There is a genuine demand for unification that comes from inside south Korea. To try to counter this, Seoul’s laws prohibit any political activity in support of reunification and any unauthorized contact with Koreans living in the north. In September of 1995, students tried to participate in the annual commemoration of Korea’s liberation from Japan that consists of a walk from Seoul to north Korea along what is called Unification Road. They were met by 5,000 cops. One year later thousands of students engaged in a nine day confrontation with the government, demanding reunification.