Monday, November 30, 2009

Truckers join the railroad workers...

The current strike Korea Railway Worker's has gone on for over 5 days now, with no signs of it slowing down. While freight services have generally found ways to work around the strike, its been made clear that the union clearly has the advantage right now. On Monday (or Sunday over in the States), the KORAIL Workers got a major boost when the Korea Cargo Transport Workers' Union (KCTWU) announced they will refuse to ship freights during the strike. This news shouldn't be a major surprise to those familiar with the history of these two unions; the two unions have a long history of giving support to eachother during strikes.

In related news about 187 KORAIL union leaders will be summoned for interrogation or face arrest for creating an illegal strike. The union might also face a compensation law suit from KORAIL for the damages it has done so far (they've already lost 4.7 billion won within 5 days). This probably part of the on-going escalation being carried out by the state, as President Lee has announced that the government will not tolerate the strike.

Other links on the strike:

"Chaos looms as truckers join rail workers in strike" from the Korea Herald (also posted at Yonhap)
"Concerns grow as strike drags on" from the Korea Herald
"Strike paralyzes South Korea's rail services" from UPI Asia
"President orders stern action against striking public workers" from Yonhap

Friday, November 27, 2009

General strike looks inevitable...

Hope all my American readers had a nice holiday, meanwhile a couple major newsworthy events happened over the last few days. The biggest being collapse of last minute talks between the two major labor umbrella unions and the labor ministry.


However, Labor Minister Yim Tae-hee walked out of the conference room in Yeouido, Wednesday, saying, “There will be no more talks.” Lim is the point man for President Lee in labor affairs, vowing in public that Korea’s militant union movement is the most backward among advanced nations and poses a major threat to continued economic growth.

The KCTU said Thursday that they were not ready to back down.

“The government and businessmen give nothing but pain and toil to people. It’s time to hear the music,” it said in a press release. KCTU leader Lim Sung-kyu said that the organization was ready to go on strike.


The FKTU has already begin throwing its weigh around by occupying the GNP's headquarters Friday during a sit-in. To add more fuel to the fire, the Korean Railway Workers’ Union strike has also started bringing freight shipping in Korea to a stop. Expect more news after the weekend.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Government's bargaining plan for multi-union shops...

Last Friday, the labor ministry announced it's plan on how multi-union shops will handle collective bargaining. I should emphasize once again, that if I am reading correctly, that this is mandatory for all shops.

The Labor Ministry on Friday unveiled a plan in a meeting with labor unions and management at local enterprises to force labor unions within a single enterprise to have a negotiation channel with the management after the country begins allowing multiple labor unions next year.

...

The unification of the negotiation channel will come about in three steps. First, different labor unions within a company must agree upon a single negotiation channel seven to 20 days before they launch a negotiation. Second, if they fail to do so within the deadline, the union that has the largest membership will automatically be given the right to bargain. Third, should there be no union with a majority of members, the unions must form a collective negotiation delegation that will comprise members from different unions. In some cases, they could adopt a proportional representation system.


This is one of the most confusing and convoluted labor laws I have ever seen. First of all, how the heck do they expect trade unions to successfully negotiate on behalf for those in other skilled unions? Different areas of work have different issues and conditions to deal with that need to be brought up in these negotiations. Its not that big of a problem for industrial unions (in theory anyways) since hopefully the negotiators will be from different areas of the workforce to make sure their voice is on the table. I don't think even the best intentioned negotiator from a carpenter union can really represent the voice of someone from a truckers union.

Yes, I know technically these unions could come up with an arrangement to make sure this issue is worked out. Unfortunately this is a fairly big if as many unions have problems working together and its not unheard of for management to favor one over another in these dealings. I can see this easily happening if there is a union in a workplace whose membership greatly outweighs others.

The labor ministry has promoted a plan to prevent multiple labor unions from wielding excessive power in negotiations and to protect minority labor unions.


I don't know if this was the plan to protect them or the writer just got lazy here. Either way, this is going to be disastrous for small unions for the reasons I just stated.

Also, unionized workers will have to get the support of its entire union membership for any proposed industrial action, according to the ministry.


I have no clue what this means, but I am guessing they are going to try to push the legal threshold for collective actions to have an extremely high threshold to pass in union voting. I'll post more as soon as I find articles that explain this in detail more.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Ok, I lied...

And I am commenting on this two days later but forgive me. I did not get home until 5 am Tuesday.

I have been mentally chewing on the recent escalation issue for a while now, and have been talking to several people about this. Things have been escalating for a while now and has quickly gained international attention by both NGOs and even western media. As time goes by it is becoming less likely that this is just going to be another weak strike that took place in July but will be a revival of the labor uprising that took place during the 1997 financial crisis.

One of the little random tidbits I discovered during my studies is that there seems to be a giant upsurge of worker activity about every 10 years give or take since independence. The uprisings of 79, 87 and 96-97 being the most famous along with the frequently overlooked upsurges during the post-independence era and the April Revolution in 1960. I guess one can say Korea is due for another upsurge which should cause some hope for labor organizers in Korea.

The question that remains on the table is whether or not an upsurge would give labor in Korea its first major victory. All but the 96-97 movements ended with violent repression by the state. The strikes that started in 1997 ended with the Korean equivalent of Reuther's Treaty of Detroit (The unions would accept IMF's economic reforms in exchange for political recognition of the KCTU).

The Korean government has generally moved away from violent repression towards more legalistic and neoliberal policies to keep things under order. Any sort of informal peace treaties seem unlikely considering that President Lee does not have the connections and respect that Kim Dae-jung did with the labor movement. Because of this, I find myself a bit more optimistic than some of my colleagues that there will be some victory for organized labor in Korea this time around. South Korean society is not as capitalist as many people think it is and there still remains bitterness towards the IMF reforms. What the KCTU and FKTU need to do is (a.) paint the struggle in pure democratic and anti-neoliberal language instead of just economic and legal terms and (b.) let grassroots activism take shape and a be forefront of the struggle. If they don't, eh, we have to wait another ten years I guess.

Monday, November 16, 2009

TUAC comments on the current situation...

As things begin heating up over in Korea, with news about the Union for the environment ministry succeeding from the KCTU and the FKTU beginning to vote on a general strike. Too add further fire, the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD adopted a resolution that condemns the Korean government for their recent actions. Along with NPR's article covering the recent rallies (with beautiful photos too), the conflict has slowly quickly becoming an international event.

More on this tomorrow (currently out of town for a conference).

Monday, November 9, 2009

Large rallies held over last weekend...

This weekend proved to be a crazy time for Korean labor organizers as the KCTU and FKTU held a two day rally over the weekend. The Hankyoreh stated that over 50,000 people attended the rallies and the JoongAng Daily puts at it around 100,000 (with the FKTU providing 60,000).

In related news, the labor ministry has stated it will fine and blacklist any firms that go against the new labor laws when implemented in 2010. I guess government regulation on business is fine when it comes to attacking workers. It amazes me how hypocritical some of these policies are.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Memorial for In Soo Chun and ritual suicide

My three years of studying and working at the University of Washington has given me countless memories that I will probably never forget. One of these was during an event on October 30th of 2008 while I was working at my barista position on campus. Around the early afternoon while working at cashier, some guy walked up to us and stated that some guy had lit himself on fire in red square. Later on I would know the name of that In Soo Chun as many people would brush this action aside as a crazy mentally ill man. A year has since passed and numerous students and workers have decided to challenge that viewpoint and remember In Soo Chun.

Evaluating the meaning of In Soo Chun's actions is not exactly an easy thing to do. As the UW Daily pointed out, ritual suicide is a fairly common practice in Korean labor and was also a big part of the democracy movements during the 70s and 80s. The act of self immolation publicly also has a political history about it, rooting with Chun Tae-Il's self immolation back in 1970. Chun Tae-il quickly became a martyr for both the labor and democracy movements and many activists chose similar routes during their lifetimes.

The question remains is exactly HOW this act became so rampant throughout the movement. Unlike Japan, there isn't any sort of tradition ritual suicide in Korean history. To make things even more complicated many people who committed political suicide were also devoted Christians (Chun Tae-il was as devout as you can get) which condemns suicide as murder and a one-way ticket to hell. By Christian logic, Chun Tae-il paid the ultimate price with his soul for his sacrifice. Prof. Nam at the University of Washington told her class that there seems to be no known source for Chun's actions. None of his writings warn about this and he did not seem well aware of the Buddhists in Vietnam who performed self immolation to protest the Diem government.

Is the action just a symbolic "FU" as one commenter posted? Is it just an example of how the human mind and soul can only be pushed too far? Or is there something we are all missing? Its stuff like these that make mankind a creature of great mystery no matter how hard we try to "rationalize" things.

However, probably my biggest beef with the media and numerous commentators on the issue is the handeling of In Soo Chun's mental "instability." Now, there is definitely a good possibility that In Soo Chun infact did had mental and emotional issues; many people do and many of those people do not commit similar actions. However, I find this being used as kinda of an "excuse" or a way to paint In Soo Chun as a deranged lunatic disgusting and offensive. I know several custodians at UW who have medical conditions that effect their emotional and mental well being and have medical history to support this. UW for the most part has done nothing to follow through on doctor's recommendations creating major distress for these people.

UW is not the only organization that has this problem; this is a wide spread problem on many levels for anyone who has a medical disability. My mother (who is bipolar) always keeps her medical history silent as she knows that few places will keep a worker around that has recorded "mental problems." The disabled are easily among the most discriminated people in society world wide, and this is just another classic example of this. I have no clue about In Soo Chun's medical history, but if he did had some issues it should not be used as a put down nor as an excuse for his actions.

With that in mind, I shall end this with a post the best way I know how when dealing with death; a prayer straight from the Book of Common Prayer:

In the midst of life we are in death;
of whom may we seek for succor,
but of thee, O Lord,
who for our sins art justly displeased?

Yet, O Lord God most holy, O Lord most mighty,
O holy and most merciful Savior,
deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death.

Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts;
shut not thy merciful ears to our prayer;
but spare us, Lord most holy, O God most mighty,
O holy and merciful Savior,
thou most worthy Judge eternal.
Suffer us not, at our last hour,
through any pains of death, to fall from thee.