[Inter-Asia Cultural Studies] vol.1 No.3, Dec.2000, pp.491-502.

New Beginning of the Democratic Union Movement in Korea:
From the 1987 Great Workers징짱 Struggle to the Construction of the Korean Trade Union Council (Chunnohyup) and the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU)
KIM, Jin Kyoon / Seoul National University

1. Introduction
The Korean independent trade union movement began a long time ago. Although autonomous trade union movements have sprung up intermittently—in the 1920s, the period of Japanese Imperialism, the 1945-1948 post-Liberation period, and the period after the April 19, 1960 Revolution—these movements were stopped by the fierce repression of the state. The mass democratic workers movement, emerging in resistance to the long-term military fascist (state) system that began with the 1961 military coup d징짱état, burst on to the scene on the national scale in 1987. Subsequently, with the nationwide 징째Great Workers징짱 Struggle징짹 in July and August of the same year, an autonomous, democratic trade union organization of a national scale was constructed for the first time in 1990. Despite the cycles of repression and resistance, the workers in industrial complexes and the big companies throughout the country built the democratic workers movement, culminating in the formation of the Chunnohyup (Korean Trade Union Council) in 1990, and in 1995, the Chunnohyup together with other workers in democratic trade unions built the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU).
Since 1961, Korea has been under every 5-year economic development plans. And in the mid-1970s, one of these 5-year plans has been promoting the development of chemical and heavy industries. Accordingly, the production process had become systemic as 징짰Bloody Taylorism징짱 in the 1960s and as 징짰Peripheral Fordism징짱 in the 1970s. Industrial complexes were promoted throughout the nation, and there, large plants were formed. The second and third industries became differentiated. The government improved the education system to meet the demands of industrialization. Through this, workers have been subject to government징짱s control with the National Security Law and strong anti-communist ideology. The workers attempts to build democratic trade unions have been intercepted by the state. Workers have been suffering economically by the long work day and low wages. However, in the mid-1980s, the mass democratization movement unfurled, and throughout the country, the workers of industrial complexes expanded the labor movement. In 1987, 징짰the June Struggle징짱 of the democratization movement forced the transition from the military fascist regime to political democratization and the through the Great Workers Struggle, workers founded many democratic trade unions. With these democratic trade unions as the base, workers made regional councils of unions and constructed the Chunnohyup in 1990.
In this paper, I will describe and analyze the process of the building of the Chunnohyup in 1990 and the formation of the KCTU in 1995. This process has been the process of the workers struggle to resist the physical and ideological repression of the state joined with the ruling blocs of Korea. Generally, this democratic trade union movement had to reform the labor law and through this, secure workers징짱 rights, and furthermore secure the legal conditions for social reform. However, the labor law has not yet met ILO recommendations. The struggle to reform the labor law has been one of the major axis of the democratic workers movement; however, I will not cover it in detail in this paper.
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4. The construction of KCTU
From the beginning of 1990's, the democratic labor movement constructed a single nation-wide organization. At the same time, because the union system was based on enterprise-level unions, it was too weak to pursue the needs of not only the workers' and the people's rights to live, but for democratization and against capital and government징짱s multiple-dimensioned flexibilization strategy. Thus, the democratic labor movement was urgently aware of the need to construct an industrial-level union to overcome the limitations of enterprise-unionism. With this awareness, Chunnohyup jointly-constructed a bigger and more-encompassing organization—the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU)—and pursued construction of an industrially-based federation that could stand at the center of the KCTU—the KFMU (Korean Federation of Metal workers Unions).
As a result, KCTU was founded on November 11, 1995 with 866 unions participating nationally and 410,000 union member. (Chunnohyup was dispersed on December 3, 1995 in the same year.) This was a new turning point for the democratic labor movement. The government and capital reacted by trying to form a strategy to co-opt the democratic labor movement, and at the same time, entered the offensive stage to attack the united labor class with neo-liberalist strategy. Since 1987, there was a trend, particularly among the big companies, to automate production or reduce manpower by introducing micro-electronic technology. Korea징짱s capitalist system was already growing more deeply linked to the world capitalist system and Korean capitalists accumulated great profits while Korea was a semi-peripheral economy in the 1980s and early 1990s. But with the economic growth of other peripheral nations, the Korean capitalists징짱 comparative advantage and profits declined, and they were faced with the difficult stage of linking up with finance capital at the center of capitalism. In an effort to meet this changing world situation, in December of 1996, capital pressured the government to change the labor law for the worse with the frame of introducing 징짰redundancy dismissal (layoff)징짱 and a labor dispatch system. These assaults on the labor law were among the motivating forces behind the 1997 General Strike. In the 1997 General Strike, both blue-collar workers, who have continued to do strong struggle with the KCTU, and white-collar workers, including financial sector workers and clerical workers, participated together in solidarity. FKTU, which is conservative and has maintained a distance from the KCTU, was also forced to fit itself into the schedule of the KCTU's general strike and all labor came together in this struggle.
The General Strike concentrated on the interests not only of the workers but also of the overall populace. The first reason for the people징짱s concern in the strike was that the National Assembly had railroaded the labor law through with illegal processes. This made the Korean people insecure as to the prospects for the upcoming President Election, the point to transform the polity to more democratic politics. The other reason is that workers and regular people hoped that the labor law could be changed for the better, at least to the level of meeting ILO standards and ensuring basic rights. However, working conditions were not changed for the better, and because the revised labor law effectively gave capitalists the handle of a sword, the sword of redundancy dismissal, the workers and the people regarded the labor law as the historic betrayal of the patient long-term enduring labor movement. Besides, the anxiety about layoffs took most of employees who were not unionized —particularly, technical engineers and office workers at the middle and upper level— completely by surprise. Although most assessed that the democratic labor unions had matured to the stage in which they could be partners in national tripartite negotiations, the government instead tried to give the capitalists the rights for mass layoffs, in other words, to force the pains of neo-liberalist flexibilization strategy on only the working class.
Therefore, most of the people supported the General Strike by the KCTU. In addition to supporting the General Strike, the democratization movement, which had weakened after the KIM, Young-Sam civilian government came into power, came together and organized the 징짰Countermeasures Committee징짱. The whole world was informed of the Korean general strike through the Internet. In the past, the workers징짱 movement was not able to rapidly inform those in foreign countries about their actions because of the government control of the press; in opposition to those official narratives, the internet made such obstacles to be gotten over a bit easier, and due to the internet, workers' and people's organizations, which faced the crisis of layoffs and unemployment all over the world, positively backed up the Korean strike.
Because of the resistance and both internal and external pressure, the government changed the labor law in the Spring of 1998. But, the amendments did not even approach expectations and rather, equipped employers with even more basis to fire workers easily. Toward the end of the strike, the government gave up its efforts to arrest and put on trial the leadership of the strike, and the KCTU—which had been regarded as an impure power, an illegal or out-law organization by the government and capital—is now invited to be a co-participant of the Tripartite Commission that was created by the new revision of the labor law in the Spring of 1998.
From the 80s to the 90s, the demand of the democratic labor movement in Korea was one for fundamental labor rights. In developed countries, the labor unions had lost their progressive character for a long time and had participated in the structure of capitalism as a partner of the capitalist; they had lost their power against capital, and were defeated by neo-liberalism. In the third world, trade unions haven't accumulated the organized base of workers to assert their fundamental labor rights yet. In the previously socialist countries, the trade unions lost progressive vitality. In this situation, the democratic labor movement of Korea has the most progressive vitality and also a strong organization, so it can serve as a possible revitalizing force for people all over the world. The future of the democratic labor movement of Korea, which is facing the new IMF situation, could be a model for the global people seeking a new way. In the process of re-unification expected by the increase of political, economical interchange between the north and the south, which is not dealt deeply in this paper, if the Korean democratic workers movement clinches its particular and progressive will, then it can influence the global struggle for people's rights.