Acting directly at the behest of Korean and international investors,
the Kim Dae Jung government in South Korea yesterday sent in more than
10,000 riot police to smash a 17-day strike. Police attacked hundreds of
workers and their families occupying six factories of the country's
largest auto parts maker, Mando Machinery, at 6 am.
Helicopters sprayed workers and their wives and children with tear gas, while armoured personnel carriers crashed through their metal and human barricades. Riot police armed with gas canisters, water canons and heavy equipment were shown on national television beating and kicking workers.
Strikers and their supporters were forced to lie flat on the ground
before being hauled away for interrogation. At least 1,600 workers were
detained.
The Mando workers had been sitting in the six factories since August
17, fighting the company's plans to terminate 1,090 workers out of a total
of 4,500. Riot police also stormed a workers' occupation at Halla Electronics,
owned by Mando's parent company the Halla Group.
Mando supplies auto parts to domestic car makers and also international giants such as GM and Ford. It posted a turnover of 1.4 trillion won last year, but went bankrupt in December in the wake of the country's currency and share market crash.
In a bid to restore Mando's profitability, the management and the unions
agreed in February to pressure workers into accepting the loss of 400 jobs
via voluntary retirements. Office workers' salaries were also reduced by
5 percent. Yet within months the management ripped up this
agreement, driven on by the slumping local car market. The company's
sales fell 32 percent in the first six months of the year, compared to
last year.
Management took advantage of new labour laws to announce its retrenchments. Mass sackings are now legal, and workers are prohibited from calling strikes to fight against them, under the revised laws, which were passed earlier this year after the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions called off general strike action.
Yesterday's violent operation is the first time that the government headed by Kim, a former pro-democracy dissident, has used the country's para-military police forces to attack workers en masse and break a strike. The regime had come under intense criticism from financial markets and media editorials for retreating from using the same methods against striking Hyundai workers last month.
The police raids were also calculated to intimidate Hyundai workers, who voted a day earlier to reject the agreement that their union had struck with Hyundai to end a protracted occupation against mass sackings. A Labour Ministry spokesman said the Mando operation could be taken as a warning to the Hyundai workers not to resume their struggle.
The KCFTU has threatened to call a national stoppage over the Mando
raids. It is also considering pulling out of a tripartite committee of
unions, big business and the government that is helping to implement the
economic restructuring demanded by the International Monetary Fund.
Such threats have been made repeatedly this year, only to be abandoned.
In fact, the KCFTU and its affiliated Hyundai unions opened the way
for the Mando attack by selling out the Hyundai struggle last month. The
KCFTU called off general strike action to back the month-long Hyundai occupation
at Ulsan, isolated the Hyundai workers, and then agreed to
the forced destruction of nearly 1,500 jobs.
The Mando assault is a sharp indicator of the new conditions confronting
workers in Asia and worldwide amid the financial collapses shaking global
capitalism. The response of the trade unions in seeking to stifle the outraged
and determined fight of workers is equally a demonstration
that the working class needs new organisations that are not committed
to upholding the national economies and meeting the profit requirements
of the capitalist market.
South Korean Hyundai workers rebuff union leaders, vote massively against
job-cutting pact
By Shannon Jones
3 September 1998
By a decisive margin South Korean Hyundai workers rejected an agreement
negotiated by leaders of the Korean Metal Workers Federation that would
sanction mass layoffs by the country's largest auto company. The vote to
reject the pact was 17,123 to 9,360, a nearly two-to-one majority. In the
wake of the vote there were calls by militant workers for the
resignation of the union leadership and the resumption of the month-long
strike.
The agreement marked the first time a major South Korean union had
agreed to layoffs. Since the passage of legislation last February permitting
layoffs numerous strikes have erupted in opposition to job cutting. South
Korea agreed to the elimination of the policy of lifetime employment as
part of a package of austerity measures demanded by the International Monetary
Fund in exchange for a $58 billion financial bailout.
The unions have agreed to cooperate with the Dae-jung government in
implementing the IMF terms. Since the beginning of the year the Korean
Confederation of Trade Unions and the metal workers union have already
helped Hyundai eliminate 5,336 jobs through so-called voluntary layoff
or retrenchment. Since February the KCTF has aborted three general strikes
called to protest government austerity measures and arrests of union officials.
Like its counterparts in other countries, the trade union bureaucracy in South Korea declares that workers have no alternative but to sacrifice in the name of corporate profits. This perspective is driving the bureaucracy into increasing conflict with the working class, which is determined to defend its jobs and living standards.
The vote rejecting the Hyundai pact, announced September 2, evoked immediate outrage from corporate management. "There is no room for further negotiation on the pact. We believe [it] is final," declared a spokesman for the company.
At a press conference Yoo Jong-keun, an advisor to President Kim Dae-jung, insisted the rejection vote had no legal standing. "The union rank and file does not have the right to reject it. I think it's just more of venting their frustrations. It will pass," he said.
The agreement followed a month-long occupation by workers of Hyundai's Ulsan plant. The union leadership called off the occupation and accepted virtually all of management's demands, including the immediate termination of 277 workers, while another 1,261 were forced to take 18-month unpaid leaves.
When 26,000 Hyundai workers struck July 20 the Korean Metal Workers
union asserted that it would never accept layoffs. Militant workers took
over the Ulsan plant in defiance of Kim Dae-jung, who declared their strike
illegal. The government mobilized 15,000 riot police--with
helicopters, bulldozers, water cannon and tear gas--in an attempt to
evict the strikers. After an initial attempt to clear the plant was beaten
back by workers, the government turned to negotiations.
On August 25 the leadership of the Korean Metal Workers ended the occupation. It announced that it had accepted a proposal sanctioning unprecedented job cuts at Hyundai. The agreement, called a "industrial harmony and non-dispute contract," called for increased worker productivity. At a joint press conference the president of Hyundai and the president of the Hyundai union predicted a "new era" of labor-management relations.
Workers reacted angrily to the pact. About 200 marched on the Hyundai
Motors main building, where union officials and management were meeting,
shouting "dismissals must be recalled."
The attempt to impose job cuts at Hyundai is seen as a major test for
the Dae-jung government and South Korean business. Hyundai has been a focal
point of worker militancy and has seen repeated strikes and clashes with
police and troops.
Korean unions accept Hyundai job cuts
Angry workers denounce agreement
By Richard Phillips
28 August 1998
Union officials representing 26,000 Hyundai Motor workers called off the month-long strike and occupation of the company's Ulsan plant last Monday, agreeing to the destruction of hundreds of jobs.
After four days of round-the-clock talks with Hyundai and the Kim Dae-jung government, the unions endorsed the immediate dismissal of 277 workers. Another 1,261 will be forced to take unpaid leave for 18 months.
In sum, the unions accepted the loss of all the jobs Hyundai management
wanted to axe--over 1,530.
A six-month retraining program for those laid-off provides no guarantee
of reemployment.
The confrontation at the Ulsan plant was widely regarded as a test
case for the government and major corporations. On the one hand, Hyundai,
the largest South Korean conglomerate, was determined to impose mass sackings
under the government's new provisions ending lifetime
employment. On the other hand, Hyundai was the centre of union militancy
and stronghold of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) during
the 1980s and 90s, with numerous strikes and pitched battles between workers
and troops.
Over the last eight months the KCTU and Hyundai unions have already assisted the company to destroy over 8,500 jobs via so-called voluntary redundancies. The unions have also negotiated wage cuts, extended unpaid vacations and increased working hours.
Now they have agreed to draw up a two-year "industrial harmony and non-dispute"
contract which includes new, but as yet undisclosed, productivity demands
as well as a commitment to restore production lost during the one-month
strike. They have also declared they will not
defend workers facing prosecution for action deemed to be "outside
the union's control."
Hundreds of workers and their families occupying the plant angrily
denounced the deal. Some burnt union flags or tore up their union vests
in protest. As news was released about the deal 200 workers shouting "dismissals
must be recalled", converged in protest on Hyundai Motors
main building where union leaders were meeting with management and
government officials.
Letters from angry workers appeared on Internet discussion groups denouncing
the union and calling on the leadership to resign. One typical comment
declared: "Hyundai workers' struggle is not only for themselves, but for
all workers in Korea!"
The agreement was negotiated only days after workers, armed with lead pipes and other hand-held weapons, resisted attempts by hundreds of heavily armed riot police to evict them from the plant on August 18.
President Kim Dae-jung, elected last year with union support, mobilised 15,000 police, accompanied by helicopters, tear gas, water cannon and bulldozers, but then pulled back, preferring to seek a deal with the union leaders.
Meanwhile, the city of Ulsan, just over 200 kilometres southeast of
Seoul, was put under siege by the police and sealed off to prevent the
entry of supporters of the striking autoworkers. The government also deployed
riot police against striking workers at the Taekwang, Hanyoung
and Kooryo companies in Incheon.
After the initial clash at Ulsan, the KCTU leadership called a press
conference, appealing to the government to join the union in brokering
a new agreement with Hyundai. The union warned of an "irrevocable catastrophe,
not only for the relations between labor, employers and the
government, but also for the whole of Korean society" if the government
attempted to use troops to break the strike.
The KCTU threatened to call nation-wide strike action and withdraw from
the tripartite job-cutting agreement established under the International
Monetary Fund's $58 billion economic restructuring plan. If, however, the
government helped negotiate an agreement, the KCTU would maintain
its "commitment to be an active force in the comprehensive reform of
the Korean society and in the national effort to overcome the crisis..."
In announcing their deal at a joint press conference, both the Hyundai Company and union presidents apologised for the prolonged dispute and declared the agreement could herald a "new era" in labour-management relations.
Two days later, another trade union federation, the Federation of Korean
Trade Unions, estimated that between 200,000 and 300,000 workers will be
dismissed throughout South Korea in September and October. Some 150,000
bank and insurance workers will lose their jobs when 12 banks and 5 insurance
companies are forced to drastically restructure or shut down. Mass job
losses are also expected at Kia Motors, Samsung, Daewoo, LG and
SK.
Unemployment has already trebled this year, reaching 7 percent even
on the official figures. This puts in doubt the government's hope to contain
the jobless total to around 1.5 million this year.
The international financial markets are demanding even more ruthless
job cuts. Steve Martin from Jardine Flemings Securities described the Hyundai
settlement as a "total farce" for not eliminating more jobs immediately.
He declared that the government would face further difficulties attracting
global capital. "It's very bad for Hyundai, for corporate restructuring
and for South Korea's ability to get overseas finance," he said.
