By Eva Cheng
For the third week, hundreds of thousands of South Korean workers have stood firm against the Kim Young-sam government's sweeping attacks on key democratic rights and working conditions. The workers have made it clear they draw inspiration from the French workers' December 1995 and '96 actions against their own government's austerity drive.
On January 14 and 15, the bigger, government-sanctioned, Federation of Korean Trade Unions called its ranks into action alongside workers led by the militant, "illegal" Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, which has been striking since December 26. The combined membership of the two federations — 500,000 in the KCTU and 1.2 million in the FKTU — amounts to about 17% of South Korea's 10 million work force.
According to the KCTU, by January 15 more than 200,000 workers were taking part in the strike, which spread from manufacturing industries (most critically the car industry) to hospitals, subways, buses and broadcasters. The strike has already inflicted production losses of US$3.2 billion.
Government reports that the strike was much smaller and had limited impact on most key sectors were contradicted by the ill-concealed concern of angry bosses. After a series of meetings in early January between five key employers' groups and the heads of 15 conglomerates, the employers threatened legal action against striking trade unionists.
Forty-nine unionists had been detained before the new year, but were released shortly afterwards. Soon after the strike resumed on January 3 after a five-day break, however, summonses were issued to 20 more, including seven KCTU leaders.
More summonses were sent when the first were ignored and the strike leaders sought refuge in the Myongdong Cathedral in Seoul, from where they led the struggle, guarded day and night against the surrounding riot police by workers armed with iron bars.
Meanwhile, the KCTU's Seoul headquarters and a number of trade union offices around the country were raided, documents and computers taken away and demonstrations blocked. After repeatedly threatening "stern" action against the strikers, Kim Young-sam ordered the lay-off of 10,000 striking civil servants and threatened to cut the public sector budget by 1 trillion won (US$710 million).
Kim is justifying the anti-union laws by arguing that workers must make sacrifices for the "national interest" because of South Korea's dwindling "competitiveness" in an increasingly "globalised" economy. The country's weakening exports, says Kim, led to the record current account deficit of US$23 billion last year.
Such arguments have been used by the bosses and governments of many countries to justify attacks on workers' conditions.
Kim's arguments are even less credible when it comes to legitimating the reintroduction of repressive provisions in the national security laws — provisions that were removed in 1993 after mass protests. The change gives more powers to the secret police's "investigation" of certain "crimes", including "not informing the government of spies" and "praising North Korea". This will mean more power to repress progressive activities and opinions.
Representatives of 866 organisations from around the country met in Seoul on January 10 to chart strategies for future actions. On the same day, at the call of the KCTU, solidarity actions were held in at least 18 countries, including Australia.