Working class
SOUTH KOREA
HESE STRIKES are
T the point of view of the bourthe regime has to try geoisie, often massive, like those of 24,000 workers at the shipyards of Hyundai in Ulsan takes over the or of 15,000 coal miners. Perhaps the most spectacular expression of the strength of the movement was the 50,000-strong demonstration on August 18 in Ulsan, an industrial town with only 250,000 inhabiand get agreement with the opposition on constitutional reform and the institutionalization of some form of bourgeois democracy. In the face of pressures from the workers' and mass movement there is, at the very least, a question mark over these objectives. Such pressure has forced agreement for direct presidential
SOUTH KOREA has been shaken by an tants.
unprecedented wave of strikes this summer.
The struggles have been
From July 17 to August 25, there were 1,064 extremely combative, with occupations of factories and disputes, with nearly 800 strikes recorded even management offices, railway lines blocking of and station occupations, at-
Every sector of the economy has been tacks against executives' affected, from automobiles and the shipyards homes and rejection of manto electronics, textiles, mines and public agement's lock-out tactics.
It is too early to make a transport. Even taxi drivers and hotel and shop detailed assessment of the experience of these workers have joined the movement. The flicts. But in general they strikes affect mainly the chaebols, the have resulted in wage inmassive conglomerates that dominate the creases and, above all, in the recognition of indepen-
South Korean economy: Hyundai, Daewoo, dent and democratic unions.
For example, the management of the Hyundai chaebol has been forced to recognize a coordinating committee of independent unions representing half of its workplaces.3
Regime forced to retreat
South Korean workers are currently sweeping into the breach opened by the victory of the June 1987 mass movement, spearheaded by students who were joined by tens of thousands of workers and even by some middle
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on September 3.1 Lucky Goldstar and Samsung.2
DAVID CAMERON layers.
This movement forced the Chun Doo Hwan regime - and its Democratic Justice Party (DJP) - to retreat considerably, to agree to the demand for direct presidential elections and to make a series of concessions that opened up a democratic space. And this space is growing. Through their struggles workers are in the process of imposing the right to strike and the recognition of their own unions by means of actions that are, strictly speaking, illegal.
Today, South Korea is at a crossroads. From elections on December 20.
At the same time, the regime and the bourgeois opposition fear above all the risk of a link-up between the most radical elements of the student movement and the strength of the workers' movement.
Following the first big wave of mobilizations for direct presidential elections in
Spring 1986, the regime timidly entered into a process of negotiation with the New Korea Democratic Party (NKDP), at that time the main opposition party. From the point of view of the DJP, the goal of these negotiations was to find a compromise solution on the question of democratic reform, but without giving way on the essential point - the method of election of the president.
The DJP was confident of winning legislative elections. Above all, it was sure of its ability to manipulate the electoral college that currently elects the president, thanks to its many links state apparatus and its better with the
This was particnational implantation.
ularly strong in the countryside where the rural development agency, Saemaul
Undong - led by President Chun's own brother - has allowed the DJP to build up a clientelist network in the country's 35,000 villages.
Strict control of democratization
The DJP's attitude is not only shaped by the defence of its own party interests — a real enough motivation for all that — but also by a determination to have firm guarantees that any democratization of the regime would be strictly controlled from above. This is the reason why the DJP defended the idea of a reform that would essentially give power to the prime minister, himself responsible to parliament.
From the masses' point of view, and
1. Figures from the Minister of Labour, International
Herald Tribune, August 26 and September 4, 1987.
2. See "A fragile 'miracle' ", IV 109, November 24,
1986.
3. International Herald Tribune, August 20, 1987.
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fight
also that of the main opposition leaders, the opposite was also true: any democratization under the control of the DJP risked being only partial and provisory. The presidential election system was the hurdle that had to be overcome in order to win a real democratic space.
It was the relative intransigence on this question of the two main opposition leaders — Kim Dae Jung and Kim Young Sam — that provoked the toughening up of the regime in the autumn of 1986. This had two sides.
### Offensive against independent unions
First, everything to the left of the NKDP, everything that represented the mass movement, no longer had the right to exist. This policy was demonstrated by the storming of the Konkuk campus on October 31, 1986; by the three year-long prison sentence given to Moon Ik Hwan, the president of the Mintongnyon coalition of popular OIganizations (the Popular Movement for Democracy and Unification), and by the dissolution of this movement; and, finally, by an offensive against the embryonic independent union movement, which was weak but whose existence had been tolerated since 1984-85.
The second aspect of the regime's repressive policies consisted in applying sufficient pressure on the NKDP so that it would give way on the central question, allowing a consensus electoral reform and the election of a new president before the Olympic games in Seoul in 1988. The games represent highly symbolic stakes for sanctioning the South Korean regime in the eyes of the international community. Included in this strategy was the necessity, if the situation arose, to split the NKDP - for example between the "moderate" Kim Young Sam and the "extremist" Kim Dae Jung. This line was taken until the explosion of June 1987, and even seemed to be having some short-
During these months, the regime consciously used the force of the state against the opposition. The hard line taken against the NKDP began in a spectacular way on November 29, 1986, when the regime sent 50,000 police into Seoul in order to prevent the party holding a rally. The two Kims were put under house-arrest, and at the cost of taking 2,000 people in for questioning, the rally was effectively banned. With the student movement on the defensive and the NKDP exposed to repression, it did not seem impossible that the latter could be brought to heel.
However, this policy has failed. The basic reason for this is that, in spite of all the strengths of the state and the
DJP, the regime presides over the destiny of a country whose economic and social structures have been profoundly modified over the last 25 years, and even since Chun Doo
Hwan's arrival in power in 1980.
The South Korean
Yellow Sea people have already shown their readiness to struggle for democracy during two periods:
in 1960-61, between the Syngman Rhee dictatorship and that of
Park Chung Hee; and again in 1979-80 between the assassination of Park and the consolidation
Chun. The period 1979-
80 in particular saw mass mobilizations and a wave of workers' strikes. And it should not be forgotten that Chun's
"consolidated" by the was power bloody crushing of the Kwangju rebel-
In spite of the violence of this repression against the mass movement it had already begun to raise its head in
1983-84. In fact, the modifications of
South Korean society - the growth of the working class, the appearance of urban middle layers, expanding numbers of young students - made the maintenance of the dictatorship increasingly difficult. Proof of this could be seen in the extent of the repression.
Under the Park regime, from 1961 to
1979, 750 people were imprisoned for political reasons. In seven years of
Chun's regime, 7,000 people were de-
In fact, a profound will to fight on democratic questions existed in the society - against censorship of press and publications, against torture and arbitrary policing, for liberating political prisoners, for the right to meet and organize freely, and above all for choose representatives in the right to non-rigged elections.
Resignations follow student's assassination
These demands met with a broad congrowth, the perspective was rather to give themselves the means to advance their interests. At least a section of the students wanted the right to raise the real problems facing South Korean society.
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But beyond the differences, it is the existence of this groundswell that allowed the NKDP to resist pressures from the regime, and that even made it understand the necessity of resistance, that the country's situation demanded bold measures to restore legitimacy to
The situation began to turn in favour of the opposition in January 1986, after the death of the student Park Chong Chol in a Seoul police station. Undoubtedly, this was not the first time that an opponent of the regime had been murdered, but thanks to a courageous press campaign it was the first time that the regime was forced tọ acknowledge it, and accept the resignations of the Minister of the Interior and the Chief of Police in Seoul. This did not stop violent repression at Park Chong Chol's funeral on February 7, but the affair continued to weaken the government.
Following new revelations around Park's death and attempts to protect those responsible, on May 26 - the eve of the June 1987 explosion — it was the turn of the prime minister, Lho Shin Yong, to resign, along with the national chief of police, the director of the Korean CIA and six other high-ups in the government.
Spring 1986 was marked by persistent anti-government agitation that the regime never managed to completely quell. In this context, the DJP succeeded in dividing the NKDP, but not exactly as foreseen.
Instead of isolating the extremists in the opposition, Chun succeeded in isolating the moderates. Confronted with the initiative of the NKDP's president, Lee Min Woo — who wanted to pro13 4. Far Eastern Economic Review, February 19, 1987. September 14, 1987 • International Viewpoint
SOUTH KOREA pose a compromise to the government that would have given way precisely on the question of the presidential election - the two Kims maintained an intransigent attitude. The tensions that this triggered off led the NKDP to split.
On April 8 the two Kims announced their break with the party and the creation of a new formation, the Reunification Democratic Party (RDP), that was to bring together around 70 of the 90 NKDP deputies and 90 per cent of its local sections. Regime on collision course with mass movement
In reaction to the NKDP split -which effectively put an end to any possibility of compromise with the opposition — Chun Doo Hwan announced on April 13 the definitive breaking-off of negotiations, and that the presidential elections at the end of 1987 would be held under an electoral college system.
From this point on the bridges were burnt, and the regime was on a collision course with the mass movement and the whole opposition - moderates, radicals, the lot.
This perspective immediately unsettled Washington. On April 18, Chun was forced to lift a ban on an interview between Kim Dae Jung and Stephen Solarz, president of the House of Representatives Commission on Asian and Pacific Affairs.
While tensions were building up to the June 1987 explosion, the regime, although resorting to repression, gave the impression of hesitating, while the same time the opposition was increasingly going onto the offensive. On various pretexts, the regime initiated persecution against several deputies who had followed the two Kims in creating the RDP, and sent gangs of thugs to the first public meetings of the new party. It exerted pressure to make it difficult for the RDP to find a room for its launch congress, without actually forbidding it.
When the congress was held, on May 1, the "moderate" Kim Young Sam made a speech comparing the presidential election system to that in North Korea, and the Olympic games in Seoul to those held in Berlin in 1936.5
Pressures grew on the government. The Catholic Church, in the person of Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou Hwan, came out against the regime. Battles broke out between the police and students in Seoul on May 13 and 14, as well as in a series of towns, notably at Kwangju on May 18, on the seventh anniversary of the 1980 massacre.
The opposition - the RDP and other
14 denesorganizations — regrouped in the forces, particularly religious and stu-
International Viewpoint • September 14, 1987
New Coalition for a Democratic Constitution (NCDC). The government reshuffle on May 26, provoked by the consequences of the Park Chong Chol affair, was to underline the weakness of the regime at this time.
In this situation June 10 - the date of the special conference that was to name Chun's heir apparent, Roh Tac Woo, as the DJP's presidential candidate - took on the character of a confrontation between the opposing forces. The NCDC called for demonstrations against Park Chong Chol's murder and for democratic reform.
The confrontation had already begun the day before. The police detained people, put 140 opposition leaders under house-arrest and deployed tens of thousands of riot police in Seoul and its provinces. But this time the repressive apparatus was not sufficient.
There were massive confrontations on June 10, with 25,000 students in the streets of Seoul that the regime's repressive forces could not get under control. In the days to follow, demonstrations and confrontations spread from the capital and set all the country's large towns alight. The mass mobilizations rapidly grew to such a level that the regime was faced with a choice: either to make concessions and try for agreement with the bourgeois opposition, or proclaim martial law and send in the army to restore order.
It seems that the latter solution was seriously contemplated between June 19 and 21. On the 19, the prime minister, Lee Han Key, was to speak of an "extraordinary decision", but the risks of such a solution were evident to everyone. As Kim Young Sam said, "The military is less likely to intervene because the social structure has been changed so much that the people would not accept such a situation."?
This was also the prevalent view in the DJP leadership and even, it seems, in the army. Washington's special envoy, Gaston Sigur, made it understood in an interview with American television that "Washington did not want to see the military mixed up in the troubles....The institution of martial law would not be an appropriate method." 8
US loses patience with
South Korea
Senator Edward Kennedy more explicit: South Korea is beginning to run out. The time has come for a transition from dictatorship to democracy."9 As for the president of the US Olympic Committee, he had made it known that his country could withdraw from the Olympic games in Seoul.
So the regime began to retreat, as the demonstrations became even more massive. An unusual consultation was held with DJP deputies on June 21, a historic meeting between Chun and Kim Young Sam took place on the 24, and
Tae Woo made his famous declaration accepting direct
Among the other points of his declaration figured the restoration of Kim Dae Jung's civil rights, freeing political prisoners, the extension of democratic rights, freedom of the press and the creation of elected local councils. Roh specified: "This does not mean a change in my belief that a parliamentary cabinet system is the form of government best suited to enabling democracy to take hold in our country." 10 But the about-turn was evident to everybody. And Chun himself had to back up Roh's declarations two days later.
Evidently, the election of a president is not in and of itself a fundamental question. What is essential is that the democratization of the regime did not come about in a 5. Speech reported in Far Eastern Economic Review, 6. Far Eastern Economic Review, July 2, 1987. 8. Cited in Libération, Paris, June 22, 1987. 9. Le Monde, Paris, June 20, 1987. 10. Far Eastern Economic Review, July 9, 1987.
-HI-
controlled way through a consensus between the government and the opposition, even an imposed consensus, but by the intervention of the mass movement. It was the masses who forced the government to retreat, which will be important in the future.
First, it will be more difficult to withdraw the concessions that have been given, and the government will have reduced room for manoeuvre. Next, the mass movement will be more disposed to help itself to its new rights, and even to win new ones. This is in fact what is happening in the
In the new situation brought about by the democratization there are two unreon the constitutional reforms and the holding of presidential elections. These are the problem of the strikes and the growth of the workers' movement, and the problem of the political prisoners.
Behind the first question lies the difficulty for the South Korean bourgeoisie of finding a way of dealing with the new, strengthened working class architect and product of the economic "miracle" — now that it has begun to forge union structures and to fight for its demands.
The second question raises the problem of the limits of the democratization process, and of the exclusion of those who not only question the dictatorship or the worst manifestations of a brutal capitalism, but also raise questions about the economic and social system, the domination of South Korea by the US and Japan and the reunification of the country. These views come mainly, but not solely, from currents inside the student movement.
The central demands of the strikes that are shaking the country are around wages and the right to organize independent unions. Concerning question, the extent to which the South Korean economic "miracle" has been realized at the cost of starvation wages and terrible working conditions should not be forgotten. No minimum wage exists in South Korea, for example, and a number of studies have documented the gravity of the wage situation.
To take only one example, according to statistics of the Christian Institute for Justice and Development in February 1987, 13.2 per cent of male workers and 63.9 percent of female workers receive wages less than the vital minimum established by the Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU) — a promanagement union. South Korean workers have longest hours in world
The same study showed that although 75 per cent of total wage earners had a living wage in 1970, this fell to 53 per cent in 1981 and only rose to 57 per cent in 1983. The average wage of women workers, who make up 6.5 million from a workforce of 16.1 million, an hour against $2.26 for men. As for working hours, with a 54.4-hour average working 1984, South Korean workers have the longest hours in the world."
Outlining these facts on the exploitation of South Korean workers should not lead to simplistic conclusions on the complete inability of the South Korean economy to grant wage rises and improved conditions. For sure, advances in these areas will cause problems for the bosses, particularly in sectors hit by the crisis, such in those labour-intensive industries, like textiles. This is particularly true for small and medium businesses and for the "informal sector", which often hire workers on a daily or part-time basis, especially
But the dynamic sectors of the economy should be able to concede wage rises that could even have beneficial effects on the internal market and stimulate increased productivity, although at the cost of creating increased unem-
SOUTH KOREA ployment. A lot depends on the rhythm and the scale of modifications in labour costs.
Anti-Communist union set up by Park Chung Hee
The main trade-union organization, the FKTU, was set up by the Park Chung Hee dictatorship in the 1960s, to "work in the interests of national security by getting rid of all procommunist elements...and establishing of industrial unionism to overcome organizational confusion and prevent unofficial work disputes". 12
The FKTU has around a million members today. Though a lap-dog of the regime, even this union had to be normalized after the 1979-80 strikes. After Chun came to power in 1980, 100 local sections of the FKTU were dissolved, 191 fulltimers sacked and 20 or so sent to camps.13
A revised work law limited union organization in the workplaces and forbade unions in places with less than 30 wage earners, thereby excluding a good chunk of the textile industry, a traditionally combative sector. 14
Since July, a small opposition current has developed in the FKTU, bringing together 50 out of the 2,300 workplace unions.15 But it appears that in the main South Korean workers reject this organization and prefer to create
Already at the beginning of 1980s, a series of independent unions - albeit a small minority — were formed and managed to keep going, often with the help of Industrial Urban Missions, which are fairly politicized Protestant structures. But these unions were hit by the toughening up of the regime in the autumn of 1986. Fourteen were dissolved, the most important being the Seoul United Union Movement (SLMU). Fifteen SLMU leaders were persecuted in September 1986 for having set up an "anti-state" organization, whose activities "served North Korea's interests" 16
But, since the beginning of July, a number of independent unions have been set up, with around 50 being recognized by the minister of labour during the month of July alone. New union structures are set up daily, following the rhythm of development of the strikes that has accelerated since the beginning of August. 11. Figures taken from Le Monde, August 12, 1987, and Far Eastern Economic Review, August 27, 1987. 12. Cited in International Labour Reports, No. 7, January/February 1985. 13. Far Eastern Economic Review, August 27, 1987. 14. International Labour Reports, No. 17, September/ October 1986. 15. Far Eastern Economic Review, August 27, 1987. Fe. mary ational Labour Repors, No. 19, January/ 15 February 1987. September 14, 1987 • International Viewpoint
SOUTH KOREA
Another important development is that the widespread system of "blacklists" of militants is beginning to collapse, with strikers often demanding the re-hiring of sacked unionists. The process of establishing a new union movement is only in its infancy, but the process is well under way.
The question of political prisoners is potentially a time-bomb for any perspective of installing stable "democratic" order in South Korea. It should be noted that on one thing there is unanimity between the government, the two Kims and the churches — to exclude communists from the democratic process.
For example, the National Council of Churches of Korea (NCCK), which has led an ongoing action on the question of political prisoners for some years, defends the position that only those detainees who freely proclaim their communist convictions should stay in prison. This position is shared by Kim Dae Jung, who adds: "A true communist will never say that he is not a communist".
Over 200 detainees still in prison
In spite of this unanimity on the exclusion of "true communists", problems remain between the opposition and the government on over 200 detainees still who have been condemned under anti-communist laws but most of whom proclaim their innocence. A conflict around these prisoners could create problems for relations between the government and the RDP. Moreover, arrests nor prison have stopped since the announcement of "democratization". On August 25, six student leaders were imprisoned, among them Woo Sang Ho, the president of the Yonsei University Student Council. He risks being found guilty of "defamation of the state", which could incur a heavy prison sentence.
Only the more radical fringe of the student movement demands the liberation of all political prisoners without exception. August 12 saw battles between the police and 1,500 students demonstrating around this demand in Seoul. The student far left is active on other issues as well. On August 15, a procession of 3,000 students demonstrated against the US presence at the end of an opposition meeting held to commemorate the anniversary of the end of Japanese occupation in 1945. But the most important task facing the students today is to link up with the embryonic workers' movement.
It is difficult to outline precisely the evolution of the main far left currents 16 Inchen erots in May, and the Konkuk that emerged in 1986 at the time of the International Viewpoint • September 14, 1987 campus battle in October. The Chamintoo (Autonomous Student Committee to fight for Democratization, against the US and Fascism), which appeared at one time to give critical support to the RDP in the name of giving priority to the struggle against US domination, has now gone back on this position. Today, this organization has apparently dissolved itself and participated in the creation of a broad organization, the Association of Seoul Universities (Sodaehyop).
During a press conference for foreign correspondents, leaders of Sodaehyop distanced themselves from "democracy, unification and indepen-
, speaking positively but cautiously about North Korea and discussthey declared: "We believe that North Korea wants peaceful reunification and that if US troops pull out we have the capability of sorting out these prob-
As for the other organization, the Minmintoo (Committee of NationalDemocratic Struggle against Imperialism and Fascism), whose leaders are still underground, it fights for the calling of a popular constituent assembly, for a provisional revolutionary government, an eight-hour working day, radical agrarian reform and a series of democratic rights. On July 20, 12 student militants were found guilty of having tried to overthrow the government and establish a revolutionary popular assembly and draft a new constitution, and were sentenced to prison sentences stretching from 17 months to seven
For the moment, the mass student movement is demobilized, waiting for the new term in September. It is probable that the students will profit from the increased democratic space and be able to act more freely, and that the politicization process will deepen.
The new term is already being prepared. On August 19, thousands of militants from 95 universities (there are 103 in the country) met at Chungnam University in Taejon to set up a new national student federation. Afterwards the students demonstrated in support of striking taxi drivers in Taejon, shouting slogans in favour of independent and democratic unions and confronting
A very significant event took place on August 23, the day after the death of Lee Sok Gyu — a young striker at the Daewoo shipyards on the island of Koje — when a joint demonstration was held between workers and students on the Yonsei campus in Seoul, ending in a confrontation with the riot police.
Today, the Chun Doo Hwan regime is by an emergent independent workers' movement, a society that has won a democratic space and an election that it could very well lose. Once more, it hesitates between repression concessions, or, rather, it tries to reconcile the two.
In mid-August Roh Tae Woo was able
"In the past, the government put the stress on growth to the detriment of spending that would benefit workers. Now, we have reached the point where we must support workers' demands for higher wages.
But ten days later, the same Roh Tae
"There is no denying that some people are worried that renewed campus disturbances by radical leftist activists, coupled with the ongoing labour disputes, might bring about a chaotic situation, irreparably damaging the political schedule....
"Nowadays, even some ranking officials in the government and the party are said to be sceptical about the prospects of the projected elections being held....Should extreme disturbances be triggered and every one of the citizens want it, then the mobilization of the military might be considered." 2
On the one hand conciliatory declarations, and on the other threats to postpone the elections and even military intervention, two measures whose consequences would be incalculable. Here there is undoubtedly a certain incoherence, but also perhaps the relaunching of an old strategy: to isolate and suppress the most radical elements (already the national police have launched a veritable witch-hunt of "leftists"), while trying to integrate the masses and "responsible" leaders. It was Chun Doo Hwan who said: "Every citizen must keep their eyes on leftists who...hide behind the banner of democratization". 22
General strike call from opposition
It remains to be seen if the regime will manage to separate the wheat from the chaff this time. Nothing could be less certain. The funeral of the murdered striker has become a major political issue, and the NCDC - the biggest regroupment of opposition forces - is calling a general strike and rallies around the country. The days, the weeks and the months to come in the run-up to the December election threaten to be difficult for the Seoul regime. The South Korean working class is far from having spoken its last word. * 17. Far Eastern Economic Review, August 6, 1987. 18. Far Eastern Economic Review, July 9 and August 6, 19. Le Monde, August 21, 1987 and International Herald Tribune, August 20, 1987. 20. Le Monde, August 15, 1987. 21. International Herald Tribune, August 26, 1987. 22. Libération, August 22 and 23, 1987.