KORAIL strike called off...

After severely damaging the railway system and being constantly harassed by the state, the KORAIL union have decided to conditionally end the longest strike in the union's history. Time will tell why they decided to end the strike and if this is a good move; KORAIL was in the weaker position and many officials doubted KORAIL could last a long term strike.

In other news, the ILO has condemned the Korean government for its substandard labor laws involving irregular workers. They also continued the long tradition of condemning penal code 314 (which allows business to sue workers for obstruction of business), which has been on the ILO's list for one of the longest running complaints against any country (its been going on for ten years). For the full report by the body (as well as information on other countries) look here.

UPDATE:

Reuters has actually posted a nice and relatively long article on this news event. Unfortunately the news seems to be far more griming than what Korean news sources are reporting:

The union said it was suspending the strike temporarily to regroup, but management said it was effectively a surrender.

"We are calling on comrade members to briefly return to the workplace so we can prepare for a new strike," the union said in a statement. "We have not been able to achieve our demands."

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

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.