The general history of the working class in the Republic of Korea

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Labour unions in the Republic of Korea: Challenge and choice
Ho Keun Song, Department of Sociology, Seoul National University, 1999; paper was revised 5 January 2000. The focus of this study is on the successes and failures of Korean unions since 1987. The paper analyses the strategies and policies that unions have implemented in a time of democratization and globalization. It also sheds some light on the consequences, explaining how the labour movement has been affected, modified and split in the process, and how it has responded to new challenges. The issues and problems that unions have faced are described in the analysis (145 Kb).
Workers’ Anger on the Rise in South Korea
PICIS Newsletter, 4 July 2000. Recent brutal attacks by the Kim Dae-Jung government on striking workers and the labor movement have rekindled the working class’s anger at the government and has laid bare the essence of the Kim government in the process.
S.Korea Workers Decry Restructuring
By Jae-suk Yoo, Associated Press, Sunday 26 November 2000. Two major South Korean labor groups rallied about 15,000 workers in central Seoul on Sunday to protest government-led corporate restructuring they fear will lead to mass layoffs. It was the first such joint rally in three years for the FKTU and the militant KCTU. The two have a combined membership of 1.8 million.
Labor Union to Set up Think Tank
By Kim Hong-su, The Chosun Ilbo, 11 November 2002. Korea Financial Industry Union (KFIU) announced that it will set up its own research institute this year to explore policies that speak for the interest of workers.
The changing face of a working-class neighborhood
By Min Seong-jae, JoongAng Ilbo, 17 February 2003. A Chinese community has begun to form on the southwestern edge of Seoul, home to more than 25,000 Chinese and hundreds of Chinese shops, restaurants and other small businesses. These immigrants are actually ethnic Koreans from China. The area is emblematic of the history of Korea’s modernization and the bright and dark sides of the fast growth of capitalism here.