My good friend Cho Hee Yeon was in today's Hankyoreh;
Reform and reconciliation top agenda of progressive party forum
Progressive parties are tasked with finding new ways to reignite voters’ desire for social change
The Korea Labor and Society Institute hosted a forum on April 30 to mark the 13th anniversary of its foundation. The forum was aimed at assessing the achievement and future development of Korean-style progressive party politics, and officials from both progressive opposition parties attended. The Democratic Labor Party and the New Progressive Party split in January, just before the April 19 parliamentary election. The DLP won just five seats in the election, whereas the NPP was unable to gain any seats in the country’s unicameral 299-seat National Assembly.
In his keynote speech, Park Sang-hun, the chief executive of the publishing company Humanitas, said the two progressive parties had poor results in the April vote because of their lack of leadership and the perception that progressives were ignoring politics altogether. Citing Max Weber’s remark that democracy without leaders would result in a domination of certain factions within political parties, rather than strengthening the power of the general public, Park said, “The reason why the political influence of the progressive parties has faded away is not because of factions, but an unlimited tolerance of factional feuding due to a lack of strong leadership. South Korea’s progressive parties have insisted on rejecting the model of leadership in which a political party is represented as a person. For the progressive parties to become more politically powerful, it is urgent to build a leadership that responds to social demands.”
In addition, Park said, progressive politicians have only pretended to have kept their distance from power politics, though they have actually been involved in such politics. As they have continued to do these things over and over again, it has prompted them to think about “who should take more moral responsibility.” As a result, it has forced the progressive parties to continue to lose supporters, Park said. “In that sense, it’s a natural consequence that the progressive force was recently split in two and reported poor political results.”
At the forum, Cho Hee-yeon, a sociology professor at SungKonghoe University, said there is a window of opportunity for progressive politics against the regime of neo-liberalism, after the landslide win by the ruling Grand National Party in the April election. Cho encapsulated “anti-neo-liberalist politics” as “radical politics for livelihood protections,” saying the progressive parties should present alternative proposals on housing, public health, medical service, education and life after retirement. In the April election, many low-income people voted for GNP candidates mainly because of campaign pledges related to “new town” apartment construction projects. Cho called low-income voters’ support of the “new town” plans an expression of a “desire for imitation,” explaining that voters wanted to copy the success of those who became rich during the 1970s-80s, when military-backed governments put the economy ahead of democracy. “The task for progressive politics is how to turn the desire for imitation into a desire for livelihood protections,” Cho said.
Cho also proposed that the DLP and NPP forge a “non-hostile relationship of conflict.” Cho, who opposed the split, said, “I hope the split will be an opportunity for the two factions to find a way to appreciate each other’s agenda. I think that the progressive party split should bring internal reforms that were difficult under the factional divisions of the past.”
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
300 days into the Eland strike
As the Hankyoreh reported last week:
The labor union of E-Land marked the 300th day of its strike on April 17. With no breakthrough in sight, Kim Gyeong-wook, the head of the E-Land union, expressed a sense of frustration, saying, “The E-Land dispute will only end if the union dies or the company dies.”
Since the strike began in June, the union and management have met several times, but the two sides have failed to narrow the gaps in key issues such as job security for part-time workers, rehiring of fired union workers and punishment of striking workers. Intermittent negotiations between the union and management were stalled again since early April. (link)
Cina has posted a video chronicling the strike in recent months as well as some more useful links and photos.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Readings
Let the revenge begin, and send your elderly to work while you are at it: Leading Business groups propose worker protections be slashed.
The heritage foundation deconstructs Lee Myung Bak's supposed pragmatism for what it is: conservatism, and the Heritage foundation hope to celebrate this fact.
Seems I missed these two other stories (thanks to IKTU for posting them), the first is about plans by Lee Myung Bak to raid the pension system to pay back defaulted credit card debt. The second is on some of his plans for education.
The heritage foundation deconstructs Lee Myung Bak's supposed pragmatism for what it is: conservatism, and the Heritage foundation hope to celebrate this fact.
Seems I missed these two other stories (thanks to IKTU for posting them), the first is about plans by Lee Myung Bak to raid the pension system to pay back defaulted credit card debt. The second is on some of his plans for education.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Mental stress and labour-management relations
From today's Hankyoreh:
Historic court ruling classifies mental problems as occupational hazard: Employees subjected to discriminatory treatment, were separated from their peers and put under surveillance
A South Korean court ruled that 12 employees of a local company were suffering from an occupational hazard. The ruling, which said that the mental problems, including depression, suffered by the workers were symptomatic of the company’s discriminatory treatment and its surveillance of their union activities. This is the first time labor-management disputes have been acknowledged as a source of work-related stress and mental illness labeled as an occupational hazard.
On April 7, Seoul Administrative Court Judge Ham Jong-sik ruled in favor of the 12 employees of Hitec RCD Korea Inc., a maker of electronics parts. The 12 workers filed suit against the state-run Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service after the government agency refused to pay for the costs associated with their medical treatment.
In the ruling, the court said: “The union members were seen as being under significant stress because the company monitored and controlled them via closed-circuit televisions and deployed them to separate production lines. The court acknowledges that their mental problems were caused by discriminatory treatment.”
The dispute between the unionized workers of Hitec RCD Korea and the management began in 2002. The workers launched hunger strikes and partial walkouts, after which the company shut down the factory and took legal action against them. In February 2003, the company fired five of the workers, including union leader Kim Hye-jin, alleging they had obstructed the work of the company and other employees. Some of the union members returned to work after the strike, but the company subjected them to discriminatory treatment, separating them from other employees by stationing them at separate production lines. In certain cases, the company gave its employees money so that they could participate in a company picnic; the unionized workers were not allowed to receive this money, though other employees were. As part of the dispute, the workers sued the company for illegally monitoring them via closed-circuit televisions; the company was forced to remove four of the cameras being used for this purpose.
As the labor-management dispute escalated, the unionized workers continued to be threatened with blackmail and slander, and many said that they felt they were “always under surveillance.” They filed a petition with the Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service to get medical treatment for stress-related symptoms, but the government agency rejected the petition, saying, “There is no relationship between work and labor-management relations.”
While the court has now ruled in favor of the workers, it seems that they still have a long way to go. Kim, the company’s union leader, said, “The unionized workers, including the five whom the Supreme Court ruled had illegally been fired, haven’t been returned to their original work stations as the company has split the production line into a separate entity.”
Historic court ruling classifies mental problems as occupational hazard: Employees subjected to discriminatory treatment, were separated from their peers and put under surveillance
A South Korean court ruled that 12 employees of a local company were suffering from an occupational hazard. The ruling, which said that the mental problems, including depression, suffered by the workers were symptomatic of the company’s discriminatory treatment and its surveillance of their union activities. This is the first time labor-management disputes have been acknowledged as a source of work-related stress and mental illness labeled as an occupational hazard.
On April 7, Seoul Administrative Court Judge Ham Jong-sik ruled in favor of the 12 employees of Hitec RCD Korea Inc., a maker of electronics parts. The 12 workers filed suit against the state-run Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service after the government agency refused to pay for the costs associated with their medical treatment.
In the ruling, the court said: “The union members were seen as being under significant stress because the company monitored and controlled them via closed-circuit televisions and deployed them to separate production lines. The court acknowledges that their mental problems were caused by discriminatory treatment.”
The dispute between the unionized workers of Hitec RCD Korea and the management began in 2002. The workers launched hunger strikes and partial walkouts, after which the company shut down the factory and took legal action against them. In February 2003, the company fired five of the workers, including union leader Kim Hye-jin, alleging they had obstructed the work of the company and other employees. Some of the union members returned to work after the strike, but the company subjected them to discriminatory treatment, separating them from other employees by stationing them at separate production lines. In certain cases, the company gave its employees money so that they could participate in a company picnic; the unionized workers were not allowed to receive this money, though other employees were. As part of the dispute, the workers sued the company for illegally monitoring them via closed-circuit televisions; the company was forced to remove four of the cameras being used for this purpose.
As the labor-management dispute escalated, the unionized workers continued to be threatened with blackmail and slander, and many said that they felt they were “always under surveillance.” They filed a petition with the Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service to get medical treatment for stress-related symptoms, but the government agency rejected the petition, saying, “There is no relationship between work and labor-management relations.”
While the court has now ruled in favor of the workers, it seems that they still have a long way to go. Kim, the company’s union leader, said, “The unionized workers, including the five whom the Supreme Court ruled had illegally been fired, haven’t been returned to their original work stations as the company has split the production line into a separate entity.”
Friday, April 04, 2008
same old same old
Well, after yesterday's surprising post, it's back to good old fashioned divisive, conflict generating policies:
New law revision could weaken unions’ right to strike
Despite objections from labor community, Justice Ministry attempts to limit voting on strikes, the Ministry of Justice is pushing ahead with a revision of laws to prevent trade unions from voting to go on strike until after a breakdown in labor-management negotiations occurs. The labor community, however, objects to the move, saying that the new law will limit the constitutional right to strike and disrupt voluntary labor-management negotiations.
The ministry announced on April 3, that it is considering a proposal to the Labor Ministry that would revise the related laws on the timing of when unions go on strike. Under the new law, unions would not be allowed to vote to strike until after labor-management negotiations break down completely. The existing laws state that walkouts should be decided by a majority vote within a union, but there is no mention about when the vote is to be conducted.
Lee Geum-ro, an official of the Justice Ministry, said, “In many cases, trade unions vote on a strike to pressure a company before collective bargaining begins. The ministry will survey cases from other countries and then propose that the Labor Ministry revise the related laws.” The ministry has begun reviewing all of the labor laws, according to the official.
In response, the labor community urged the government to discontinue the plan, saying that the new laws could infringe upon the Constitution and worsen labor-management conflicts.
Gwon Du-seop, a lawyer with the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, one of South Korea’s umbrella labor organizations, said that the issue of putting restrictions on the timing of when a vote to strike should take place was briefly discussed when a road map for labor-management relations was under review in September 2006, but the Tripartite Commission did not adopt it because it would severely limit laborers’ right to strike. “I don’t understand why the Justice Ministry is raising the same issue again,” added Gwon.
Woo Moon-sook, the spokeswoman of the KCTU, said, “In reality, employers tend to avoid or conduct unbalanced negotiations, even if labor unions stage walkouts in situations such as what happened with E-Land or Koscom. If the right to strike, which is a laborer’s last resort, is restricted, the basic rights of laborers will inevitably be violated.”
Korea’s other, major umbrella labor union, the Federation of Korean Trade Unions, said, “Even if laborers decide to stage a strike, in most cases, they cancel the strike after negotiating with the management. If they can vote only after negotiations have failed, conflicts may be aggravated because the eleventh-hour dialogue between labor and management has been blocked.”
New law revision could weaken unions’ right to strike
Despite objections from labor community, Justice Ministry attempts to limit voting on strikes, the Ministry of Justice is pushing ahead with a revision of laws to prevent trade unions from voting to go on strike until after a breakdown in labor-management negotiations occurs. The labor community, however, objects to the move, saying that the new law will limit the constitutional right to strike and disrupt voluntary labor-management negotiations.
The ministry announced on April 3, that it is considering a proposal to the Labor Ministry that would revise the related laws on the timing of when unions go on strike. Under the new law, unions would not be allowed to vote to strike until after labor-management negotiations break down completely. The existing laws state that walkouts should be decided by a majority vote within a union, but there is no mention about when the vote is to be conducted.
Lee Geum-ro, an official of the Justice Ministry, said, “In many cases, trade unions vote on a strike to pressure a company before collective bargaining begins. The ministry will survey cases from other countries and then propose that the Labor Ministry revise the related laws.” The ministry has begun reviewing all of the labor laws, according to the official.
In response, the labor community urged the government to discontinue the plan, saying that the new laws could infringe upon the Constitution and worsen labor-management conflicts.
Gwon Du-seop, a lawyer with the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, one of South Korea’s umbrella labor organizations, said that the issue of putting restrictions on the timing of when a vote to strike should take place was briefly discussed when a road map for labor-management relations was under review in September 2006, but the Tripartite Commission did not adopt it because it would severely limit laborers’ right to strike. “I don’t understand why the Justice Ministry is raising the same issue again,” added Gwon.
Woo Moon-sook, the spokeswoman of the KCTU, said, “In reality, employers tend to avoid or conduct unbalanced negotiations, even if labor unions stage walkouts in situations such as what happened with E-Land or Koscom. If the right to strike, which is a laborer’s last resort, is restricted, the basic rights of laborers will inevitably be violated.”
Korea’s other, major umbrella labor union, the Federation of Korean Trade Unions, said, “Even if laborers decide to stage a strike, in most cases, they cancel the strike after negotiating with the management. If they can vote only after negotiations have failed, conflicts may be aggravated because the eleventh-hour dialogue between labor and management has been blocked.”
Thursday, April 03, 2008
not a terribly bad idea?
This one is going to be a first. I actually agree some aspects of one policy of the new regime, just one so far, though. This would be one of the few actual 'pragmatic' plans that it has beyond the reckless, crisis prone policies that he also seems set to unveil. This is the plan to use Nonghyup's profits to pay off the debts of some farmers. The principle here that I support would be that the National Farmers Cooperative is actually run like a cooperative and not a profit-making business. However, plans shouldn't merely be forced onto it and there should be more protections and socialization of costs at different levels of governance that compliment the kind of relief highlighted here.
Gov't pushing to ease farmers' debt burden
The government is pushing to introduce a new agriculture equipment leasing system to help ease the farmers' debt burden, a senior policymaker said on Thursday.
The plan calls for the state-supported National Agricultural Cooperative Federation (Nonghyup) to use profits generated through its banking operations to help alleviate debt incurred by farmers who have bought equipment such as combines, tractors and rice transplanters.
Minister for Food and Agriculture Chung Woon-chun said Nonghyup posts profits of 1.2-1.3 trillion (US$1.23-1.33 billion) won every year that could be diverted to help relieve some of the 1.2 trillion won in debt incurred by farmers from buying equipment.
The official said in talks with the cooperative's managers in Seoul that a leasing arrangement would be a feasible means to reduce debt, while at the same time not hurting the ability to raise crops.
"Nonghyup could buy farm equipment from farmers and then lease it back to those who need it," Chung said. The size of the purchase would be determined by the size of the debt of individual farming households.
He added that such support is in accordance with the cooperative's goal of helping farmers.
The minister said that measures are underway to ascertain exact levels of debt, with a detailed blueprint on how best to push for the new system to be announced at the end of the month.
Using farm equipment is essential for mass production, but because of steep prices, small farms are unable to generate enough money to pay back loans used to buy the equipment.
Nonghyup officials said they will try to make changes that will allow the purchase of farm equipment and the start of a leasing program, although some reservations have been raised.
Insiders said that while the agriculture ministry thinks the cooperative generates more than 1 trillion won worth of profit every year, a lot of this must be set aside to meet the capital adequacy ratio set by the Bank for International Settlements.
Of the total, about 650 billion won is reserved for capital adequacy and support projects. It said another 140 billion won is used as dividends for regional cooperatives which are shareholders of the nationwide organization.
This, it said, leaves around 400 billion won available for the leasing equipment, with even this amount unlikely to be used entirely because of the need to maintain emergency relief reserves.
Gov't pushing to ease farmers' debt burden
The government is pushing to introduce a new agriculture equipment leasing system to help ease the farmers' debt burden, a senior policymaker said on Thursday.
The plan calls for the state-supported National Agricultural Cooperative Federation (Nonghyup) to use profits generated through its banking operations to help alleviate debt incurred by farmers who have bought equipment such as combines, tractors and rice transplanters.
Minister for Food and Agriculture Chung Woon-chun said Nonghyup posts profits of 1.2-1.3 trillion (US$1.23-1.33 billion) won every year that could be diverted to help relieve some of the 1.2 trillion won in debt incurred by farmers from buying equipment.
The official said in talks with the cooperative's managers in Seoul that a leasing arrangement would be a feasible means to reduce debt, while at the same time not hurting the ability to raise crops.
"Nonghyup could buy farm equipment from farmers and then lease it back to those who need it," Chung said. The size of the purchase would be determined by the size of the debt of individual farming households.
He added that such support is in accordance with the cooperative's goal of helping farmers.
The minister said that measures are underway to ascertain exact levels of debt, with a detailed blueprint on how best to push for the new system to be announced at the end of the month.
Using farm equipment is essential for mass production, but because of steep prices, small farms are unable to generate enough money to pay back loans used to buy the equipment.
Nonghyup officials said they will try to make changes that will allow the purchase of farm equipment and the start of a leasing program, although some reservations have been raised.
Insiders said that while the agriculture ministry thinks the cooperative generates more than 1 trillion won worth of profit every year, a lot of this must be set aside to meet the capital adequacy ratio set by the Bank for International Settlements.
Of the total, about 650 billion won is reserved for capital adequacy and support projects. It said another 140 billion won is used as dividends for regional cooperatives which are shareholders of the nationwide organization.
This, it said, leaves around 400 billion won available for the leasing equipment, with even this amount unlikely to be used entirely because of the need to maintain emergency relief reserves.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
neoliberal left, neoliberal right; or, market friendly left, chaebol friendly right?
Two stories in the Hankyoreh highlight a tension that I've seen coming for a while and which I have felt cautious about in my own writing here and elsewhere. That is the difference between the Roh and Lee regimes on economic policy. Undoubtedly, the Roh regime focused on trade and labour liberalization, corporate governance restructuring (in favor of shareholders and accountability), as well as some financial liberalization. Roh's policies were certainly 'market friendly' in a neo-liberal sense: a notion of the market best approximated by the neo-classical ideal of a free market of small and medium sized firms in perfect competition.
Now, Lee also claims that his policies are market friendly but that he is focusing on competition first. In other words he favors the domestic conglomerates and proposes to do away not just with rules designed to enhance transparency and competition in the way highlighted above but the very supervisory role of the state in guaranteeing the rules under which that competition takes place. Or so I gander from two recent articles in the Hankyoreh on the restructuring of the Fair Trade Commission and the Banking sector: changes to both reflect a rather reckless 'let the chaebol own what they want' attitude with none of the regulatory requirements of past regimes, including the dictatorships that Lee and others like him saw as rational economic planners who used state power to channel finance to industrial development -- that is not what is going on here.
I guess the irony here is that the left, often cursed for the 'lost decade' of slowed growth since the 1997 crisis and criticised for being ideological (a la socialism) were actually better neo-liberals in the sense that their neoliberalism was more attached to actual economic ideals -- ones which I myself am very critical of as I see no invisible hand to economic life and worry about the forms of power masked by such rhetoric. Meanwhile the right seem not simply pragmatic -- as in 'let's see what works' -- in their policy choices but just corrupt and after power for their friends in ways that might be much more dangerous to the economy, environment and society in the long term. Similar issues to these are mirrored, I suppose, in the continued controversy over the new right's 'textbook' of revisions of the historical record and their shinning appraisals of past colonial and dictatorial regimes.
Now, Lee also claims that his policies are market friendly but that he is focusing on competition first. In other words he favors the domestic conglomerates and proposes to do away not just with rules designed to enhance transparency and competition in the way highlighted above but the very supervisory role of the state in guaranteeing the rules under which that competition takes place. Or so I gander from two recent articles in the Hankyoreh on the restructuring of the Fair Trade Commission and the Banking sector: changes to both reflect a rather reckless 'let the chaebol own what they want' attitude with none of the regulatory requirements of past regimes, including the dictatorships that Lee and others like him saw as rational economic planners who used state power to channel finance to industrial development -- that is not what is going on here.
Kim Jin-bang, a senior activist with the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy and a professor at Inha University, blamed the FTC for “Its plan to ease regulations, despite a lack of plans for supervisions and punishments, which shows that (the FTC) may sit idly by if the market collapses.”
I guess the irony here is that the left, often cursed for the 'lost decade' of slowed growth since the 1997 crisis and criticised for being ideological (a la socialism) were actually better neo-liberals in the sense that their neoliberalism was more attached to actual economic ideals -- ones which I myself am very critical of as I see no invisible hand to economic life and worry about the forms of power masked by such rhetoric. Meanwhile the right seem not simply pragmatic -- as in 'let's see what works' -- in their policy choices but just corrupt and after power for their friends in ways that might be much more dangerous to the economy, environment and society in the long term. Similar issues to these are mirrored, I suppose, in the continued controversy over the new right's 'textbook' of revisions of the historical record and their shinning appraisals of past colonial and dictatorial regimes.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
progressive options
Here is an interesting editorial from the Hankyoreh:
[Column] A politics for all 100%
Kim Yeong-ok, Research professor, Ewha Womans University Korean Women’s Institute
» Professor Kim Yeong-ok
I happened upon the blog of Choi Hyun-sook (http://blog.naver.com/bebreaking), Korea’s first “sexual minority” candidate for the National Assembly, and lost myself for hours. I forgot about the passing of time as I looked through her entries and deep into where the tags led me, and it was a most enjoyable excursion. I happened upon a video, taken March 8, of Choi speaking at an International Women’s Day event in front of Seoul City Hall, full of delight and passion. As if trying to offset the heavy seriousness that comes with talking about turning minorities into a political force to reckon with, she ran all about the plaza with a smile on her face.
The reason it looked more powerful and refreshing was also because there are increasing concerns about feminism today. Some people say the movement shrank rapidly after the long goal of doing away with the hoju system, the “head of household system,” in 2005, or that there is resistance from a kind of “anti-feminism,” or that the “public base of operations” that was the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family is being shrunk to being just the Ministry of Gender Equality, and the assessment is that it has become more difficult to do anything, even before we had the chance to do anything politically.
Diagnoses such as these show you how feminism is in a difficult position lately, but they are not surprising. Anti-feminist resistance and feminist pursuits have always been in a contentious relationship, and the fact the body of the movement has shrunk indicates that its agenda has diversified, and that there are separate movements according to goals particular to locale or issue. It is clearly a major event to have the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family shrunk in size and name, to be called the Ministry of Gender Equality. There are major concerns that the accomplishments of feminism could also be downsized or disappeared. (One example would be signs there might be a revival of the allowance for additional points for previous military service in the hiring of employees.)
Feminism tries to read the ways of thinking and behavior of the mainstream, from the perspective of being a minority. First and foremost, feminism’s efforts to disseminate a broad perspective of gender equality and sensibility are accomplished by building solidarity with like-minded people and engaging in sustained dialogue with those who think differently. As noted by Chantal Mouffe, that which is political speaks basically of a situation of conflict between opposing ideas that cannot be combined. It is important to, instead of stubbornly trying to erase the differences between opposing ideologies, agonize politically over ways to coexist by honest recognition of those differences.
It is with this view that the upcoming National Assembly election presents some very politically interesting points. It is very meaningful that Park Young-hee, who has spent the last decade campaigning for the rights of disabled women, will be a proportional representative candidate of the New Progressive Party, and that a woman from the Philippines will be a proportional representative candidate for the Creative Korea Party. I do not think of these women as strategic candidates, there for show or as assistants. It is a reflection of the fact that Korean society has changed, that the “alternative perspective” provided by feminism is winning approval from regular citizens whether people realize it or not, at least to the point where women such as these can stand on the center stage of politics. Park notes that, for feminists, the social movement and electoral politics perhaps can no longer be separate things. The more your group is a minority, the more important this philosophy becomes.
Park was a “good disabled girl” who never challenged anyone and became a “vicious and ferocious disabled feminist activist,” while Choi makes coming out a major part of her political agenda. Both stress the need for a sense of responsibility among their supporters. When this becomes political and evolves into a form of solidarity, it will mean a politics that goes beyond the limits of representative, elected politics. I am truly, very curious to see what it looks like when Choi, Park and the woman from the Philippines propose, and then implement, a politics that “is for 100 percent of the population instead of 1 percent.”
[Column] A politics for all 100%
Kim Yeong-ok, Research professor, Ewha Womans University Korean Women’s Institute
» Professor Kim Yeong-ok
I happened upon the blog of Choi Hyun-sook (http://blog.naver.com/bebreaking), Korea’s first “sexual minority” candidate for the National Assembly, and lost myself for hours. I forgot about the passing of time as I looked through her entries and deep into where the tags led me, and it was a most enjoyable excursion. I happened upon a video, taken March 8, of Choi speaking at an International Women’s Day event in front of Seoul City Hall, full of delight and passion. As if trying to offset the heavy seriousness that comes with talking about turning minorities into a political force to reckon with, she ran all about the plaza with a smile on her face.
The reason it looked more powerful and refreshing was also because there are increasing concerns about feminism today. Some people say the movement shrank rapidly after the long goal of doing away with the hoju system, the “head of household system,” in 2005, or that there is resistance from a kind of “anti-feminism,” or that the “public base of operations” that was the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family is being shrunk to being just the Ministry of Gender Equality, and the assessment is that it has become more difficult to do anything, even before we had the chance to do anything politically.
Diagnoses such as these show you how feminism is in a difficult position lately, but they are not surprising. Anti-feminist resistance and feminist pursuits have always been in a contentious relationship, and the fact the body of the movement has shrunk indicates that its agenda has diversified, and that there are separate movements according to goals particular to locale or issue. It is clearly a major event to have the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family shrunk in size and name, to be called the Ministry of Gender Equality. There are major concerns that the accomplishments of feminism could also be downsized or disappeared. (One example would be signs there might be a revival of the allowance for additional points for previous military service in the hiring of employees.)
Feminism tries to read the ways of thinking and behavior of the mainstream, from the perspective of being a minority. First and foremost, feminism’s efforts to disseminate a broad perspective of gender equality and sensibility are accomplished by building solidarity with like-minded people and engaging in sustained dialogue with those who think differently. As noted by Chantal Mouffe, that which is political speaks basically of a situation of conflict between opposing ideas that cannot be combined. It is important to, instead of stubbornly trying to erase the differences between opposing ideologies, agonize politically over ways to coexist by honest recognition of those differences.
It is with this view that the upcoming National Assembly election presents some very politically interesting points. It is very meaningful that Park Young-hee, who has spent the last decade campaigning for the rights of disabled women, will be a proportional representative candidate of the New Progressive Party, and that a woman from the Philippines will be a proportional representative candidate for the Creative Korea Party. I do not think of these women as strategic candidates, there for show or as assistants. It is a reflection of the fact that Korean society has changed, that the “alternative perspective” provided by feminism is winning approval from regular citizens whether people realize it or not, at least to the point where women such as these can stand on the center stage of politics. Park notes that, for feminists, the social movement and electoral politics perhaps can no longer be separate things. The more your group is a minority, the more important this philosophy becomes.
Park was a “good disabled girl” who never challenged anyone and became a “vicious and ferocious disabled feminist activist,” while Choi makes coming out a major part of her political agenda. Both stress the need for a sense of responsibility among their supporters. When this becomes political and evolves into a form of solidarity, it will mean a politics that goes beyond the limits of representative, elected politics. I am truly, very curious to see what it looks like when Choi, Park and the woman from the Philippines propose, and then implement, a politics that “is for 100 percent of the population instead of 1 percent.”
Thursday, March 20, 2008
What's that I smell? Authoritarianism?
It smells a bit like tear gas...
From today's Hankyoreh
[Editorial] Trading Public Safety for Law and Order
The prosecution and the police are speaking with the same voice on the need to “establish law and order.” Yesterday, the Ministry of Justice, in a regular report to the president, said it would emphasize establishing law and order and reviving the economy. The police say they are going to make sure a tone of law and order “takes root.” They talk also about common public safety, but by the looks of it, things are slanted towards the political.
The government’s posture here is very dangerous. The justice ministry says it is going to actively intervene in illegal or politically-motivated strikes in their early stages and thoroughly pursue organizers and have them prosecuted. It also said it would excuse from responsibility all “legitimate” use of police power. The police are already saying they are going to create brigades of riot police that act as arrest teams at protest sites. This is reminiscent of the “Baekgoldan,” the “white skull corps” of President Chun Doo-hwan’s Fifth Republic.
Connect the dots and you see that these are the hard-line answers of two decades ago. It is clearly going to lead to the kinds of police abuses and excessive suppression of assemblies that lead to unfortunate mishaps and intense confrontations as people respond to such events in protest. Democratization broke that cycle, but now, twenty years later, we are returning to the mess of yesteryear? This recklessness that has its eyes closed to history is saddening. One worries even more that this kind of government response will be used as a way to stifle opposition to various current issues such as the Grand Korean Waterway. It threatens the constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of assembly, protest and expression.
A bigger concern is that these measures are mainly targeting laborers. A case in point is a government plan to revise labor laws. Under the revisions, the police will have the power of the prosecution to quell illegal strikes and illegal demonstrators will be subject to both criminal and civil punishment. Various trade unions have already lost influence because of searches, arrests and lawsuits for extraordinary damages. If the government’s plan is realized, the activities of the labor unions will be weakened even further. The government, meanwhile, will reconfigure labor laws to favor businesses, and is likely to make companies less responsible for various illegal acts. In this way, the government will suppress one side while supporting the other, aggravating labor-management conflicts.
It would be natural to assume, then, that the government’s focus on law and order will lead to a neglect of public safety. The police will have to monitor labor unions and chase illegal strikers, while at the same time carrying out its regular function of protecting the general public. If the president and the leaders of justice organizations become concerned about law and order, the police will also have to concentrate on that. The government will do nothing to ease civilian anxieties by paying lip service to public safety. The government should change its direction as soon as possible.
Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]
From today's Hankyoreh
[Editorial] Trading Public Safety for Law and Order
The prosecution and the police are speaking with the same voice on the need to “establish law and order.” Yesterday, the Ministry of Justice, in a regular report to the president, said it would emphasize establishing law and order and reviving the economy. The police say they are going to make sure a tone of law and order “takes root.” They talk also about common public safety, but by the looks of it, things are slanted towards the political.
The government’s posture here is very dangerous. The justice ministry says it is going to actively intervene in illegal or politically-motivated strikes in their early stages and thoroughly pursue organizers and have them prosecuted. It also said it would excuse from responsibility all “legitimate” use of police power. The police are already saying they are going to create brigades of riot police that act as arrest teams at protest sites. This is reminiscent of the “Baekgoldan,” the “white skull corps” of President Chun Doo-hwan’s Fifth Republic.
Connect the dots and you see that these are the hard-line answers of two decades ago. It is clearly going to lead to the kinds of police abuses and excessive suppression of assemblies that lead to unfortunate mishaps and intense confrontations as people respond to such events in protest. Democratization broke that cycle, but now, twenty years later, we are returning to the mess of yesteryear? This recklessness that has its eyes closed to history is saddening. One worries even more that this kind of government response will be used as a way to stifle opposition to various current issues such as the Grand Korean Waterway. It threatens the constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of assembly, protest and expression.
A bigger concern is that these measures are mainly targeting laborers. A case in point is a government plan to revise labor laws. Under the revisions, the police will have the power of the prosecution to quell illegal strikes and illegal demonstrators will be subject to both criminal and civil punishment. Various trade unions have already lost influence because of searches, arrests and lawsuits for extraordinary damages. If the government’s plan is realized, the activities of the labor unions will be weakened even further. The government, meanwhile, will reconfigure labor laws to favor businesses, and is likely to make companies less responsible for various illegal acts. In this way, the government will suppress one side while supporting the other, aggravating labor-management conflicts.
It would be natural to assume, then, that the government’s focus on law and order will lead to a neglect of public safety. The police will have to monitor labor unions and chase illegal strikers, while at the same time carrying out its regular function of protecting the general public. If the president and the leaders of justice organizations become concerned about law and order, the police will also have to concentrate on that. The government will do nothing to ease civilian anxieties by paying lip service to public safety. The government should change its direction as soon as possible.
Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Suicides of part-time lecturers
Hyejin Kim at Global Voices online has interesting piece up about the exploitation of part-time academic labour, in my mind a global issue. (Part time lecturers here in Canada make 5ooo $cdn per course taught. At my school, teaching assistants are unionized but part-time lecturers are not, thus it is more profitable to T.A. a course as the full time rate is also 5000; the amount of work is strictly regulated and often less than half of what the instructor works.)
Part-time lecturers teach 40 percent of all college classes in Korea. But their treatment is the worst of irregular jobs. Other part-time job employees receive 50-55 percent of the salary of the same regular jobs, but part-time lecturers receive less than 1/3.
The lecture fee of the part-time lecturers at national and state universities is about 40,000 won (US 40 dollars) per hour. A lecturer who teaches western art at Seoul National University said, “last semester, I taught a three hour class and received 420,000 won (US 420 dollars) per month.”
Employment is extremely unstable. A part-time lecturer at a private college said, “In the new semester, if the school calls me, then I can teach. Otherwise my contract is done. A research assistant informs us by phone.” Kim Dong Ae (62) who leads a part-time lecturer labor union said, “if the salary doesn’t come on time and I call the administration, they answer why we bug them with such tiny money. We have to put up with this unequal treatment, but nowhere can we complain about it.”
Here's the link to the article if you want read more.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
International Women's Day
Here's a story from a few days ago about Int'l Women's Day.
Gender Equality Still Has Far to Go in Korea
By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter
In Korea, just the fact of being a woman already implies several disadvantages one has to bear, an official of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), said.
There are still countless problems facing female employees in the country and they aren't just fighting for perks ― they are just asking for basic living rights, said KCTU spokesman Oh Moon-sook.
``In some small-sized companies, a 10-year-experienced female gets paid a million won a month despite having to work extended hours and sometimes being forced to work under bad working conditions resulting in poor health conditions often leading to a miscarriage. In many cases, they are outsourced workers who aren't guaranteed basic insurance or medical care,'' she said.
Today marks the 100th International Women's Day designated by the United Nations.
In 1908, 15,000 woman workers cried out for women's rights on the streets of New York when 146 female workers died in a fire that occurred at a clothing company. It ignited calls for a better working environment and social treatment for women.
However, 100 years later, there are still in many countries women suffering maltreatment at the hands of men in workplace and home. They say though the economy as a whole may have risen, social prejudice toward women is only being diminished very slowly.
The KCTU as well as some other civic groups said women are hired mostly in non-permanent positions and get promoted less than their male peers.
The groups plan to hold protests in downtown Seoul requesting the government and society to acknowledge the problems they have. Attention will be drawn to such matters as KTX bullet train attendants' employment, where a lot of woman are employed on a part time basis, E-Land clerks' repositioning, and the poor treatment of cleaning ladies.
According to the Seoul City government, the wage gap between the sexes is quite large. Women get paid only 64 percent that of men while they put double the time in home management.
Further research by the Democratic Labor party showed that female non-permanent workers get paid a mere 40 percent of that of male permanent workers.
The reality lets women down and makes it hard for them to live an ``ordinary'' life. ``Being sandwiched among the soaring market price, high education fees, hectic working schedule and others puts me off from having children and other ordinary family life some times,'' Park Chung-wha, an English teacher at a private institution, said.
Another married woman Chung Sun-ae had to give up getting a job because she was married and ``had the possibility of having children.'' She actually had a child later, which kept her occupied all day long. ``I have a master's degree. I hope I can use it some day,'' she said.
There are some signs of improvement however. The Ministry of Labor said the employment rate of females between 15 and 64 has gone up about 10 percentage points in 12 years, from 43.6 percent to 53.1 percent.
The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family was established in 2005 and survived the Lee Myung-bak administration's government reorganization plan, thanks to public understanding that gender equality in the country still has a long way to go.
To mark the International Women's Day, a commemorative event will be held at Seoul Plaza. The event will feature plays and concerts.
``We will work till both genders are treated equally ― no more domestic violence or sexual violence, childcare problems and others. We are pretty positive that we can find our way there,'' one of the organizers said.
Friday, February 29, 2008
International solidarity with migrant workers in Korea
Here is an article from earlier this month from the MTU's tireless solidarity coordinator Wol-san Liem, it is posted over at the immigrant solidarity network site.
The Migrant Workers’ Struggle in South Korea and International Solidarity
Wol-san Liem
International Solidarity Coordinator, Seoul-Gyeonggi-Incheon Migrants’ Trade Union
February 9, 2008
1. Introduction
As the issue of immigration has come to center stage in policy debate in the United States over the last several years, grassroots organizations, NGOs and labor unions have put forth strong calls for increased rights form immigrants, pathways to citizenship and an end to raids and deportations. While organizing, public education and lobbying efforts have been lively, however, as with many movements in the U.S., discussion of the issue’s international dimension has been relatively lacking. In fact, the issues of immigration policy reform and undocumented immigrants/migrants are central to countries across Europe and Asia. At the same time struggles against raids and deportations and for immigrant/migrant workers’ labor and human rights are growing in many of these countries. Of these, the struggle in South Korea is significant for the central role played by undocumented migrant workers organizing as part of the labor movement.
The purpose of this article is to introduce the U.S. immigrant rights movement to the migrant workers movement in South Korea. It focuses on the development and current work of the Seoul-Gyeonggi-Incheon Migrants’ Trade Union, a union build by and for migrant workers regardless of visa status, whose entire leadership is made up of undocumented migrant workers. It also covers the heavy government repression against MTU and ends with a call for solidarity actions in timing with the commemoration of a tragic detention center fire in February of last year and, more widely, greater international solidarity in the immigrant/migrant workers movement worldwide.
II. Background
There are currently roughly 400,000 migrant workers living in South Korea who work in a number of industries, in particular manufacturing and construction, and in services such as restaurants and entertainment. While their numbers may seem small compare to those in the United States, it must be remembered that the history of the current labor migration to South Korea is only twenty-years old, and the country has traditionally implemented strict policies concerning inward migration and long term settlement. In addition, the numbers are steadily rising and migrant workers have become centrally important to the South Korean economy, particularly in specific industries. Migrant workers come from nearly 100 countries including China (Chinese and Chinese of Korean origin), Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bangladesh, Nepal, and West African countries. While conditions, of course, vary depending on industry, country of origin, gender and visa status, migrant works in general face low wages, poor working conditions, ill-treatment at the hands of employers and racism and discrimination from society at large.
Migrant workers first began coming to South Korea in the 1980s, when small and middle-sized manufacturing, construction and other companies began to experience severe labor shortages. Migrant workers, most of whom entered South Korea on tourist or other short-term visas, began to fill this need for additional manpower. Because of the economic necessity, the South Korean government condoned and even encouraged the influx of migrant workers through relaxation of immigration procedures after the 1988 Olympics even before drawing up a formal policy to regulate migrant labor. Eventually, the government developed and implemented the Industrial Trainee System, which brought migrants to South Korea as ‘trainees’ as a way to skirt labor laws concerning wages and work conditions, in order to provide cheap and regulated migrant labor to companies experiencing shortages. This system was severely critiqued by civil society for causing vast abuses of human and labor rights and leading to an increase of undocumented migrants. Negative public opinion forced a change in the system. As such, the government implemented the Employment Permit System (EPS) in 2003, claiming it would protect migrant workers’ rights. This is, however, far from the truth.
III. Employer Permit System
The EPS is currently the main system governing migrant labor in South Korea. While unlike the Trainee System, it does legally acknowledges migrant workers as 'workers', it is in fact designed to preserve the benefits business owners received from the previous system by creating a labor force that is cheap and exploitable.
Under the EPS, migrant workers are prohibited from changing their workplaces at will. If a migrant worker wants to change to another job, he/she must obtain consent from his/her employer and apply to the Ministry of Labor. This process is very difficult for many workers, especially because employers are sometimes unwilling to release their employees. What is more, migrant workers are only allowed to change workplaces three times, except in exceptional circumstances. As such, many migrant workers are stuck at companies where they face unsafe working conditions, low or unpaid wages and inhumane treatment. Female migrant workers are often effectively trapped with employers who sexually harass or abuse them. In addition, because migrant workers are required to renew their contracts each year of the three-year period of the three-year residence period allowed them, they become completely subordinated to the will of their employers, making the exercise of labor rights completely impossible. Finally the sort term 3-year residence period is often not long enough to make enough money to pay off debts incurred during migration and save money to support families back home. The EPS system has, as such, also received strong criticism from human rights, social movement and labor organizations in South Korea and the attention of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants.
IV. Undocumented Migrant Workers and the Current Crackdown
There are over 200,000 undocumented migrant workers in South Korea, more than half of the total population of migrant workers. Many migrant workers have become undocumented by overstaying their visas. This is often inevitable because low-wages make it impossible for migrant workers to save enough money to pay off debts or support their families. Migrant workers may also become undocumented because they are forced to flee difficult conditions at their legally registered workplaces. It is clear that in addition to being an effect of war and neoliberal globalization, which have created situations of unemployment and poverty in migrant-sending countries and vast inequality between nations, the high percent of undocumented migrant workers in South Korea is a direct result of the government misguided policy governing the migrant labor force.
While acknowledging undocumented migrants as a serious social problem, the government has made no effort to find a root-level solution. Instead it has, since 2003, carried out a brutal policy of crackdown and deportation against undocumented migrant workers. This, however, has done nothing to reduce their numbers, which continued to increase after the EPS was implemented. Most recently, a mass joint crackdown (carried out by the Ministry of Labor, the Immigration Authorities and the police) was carried out from August to December in 2007 during which thousands were arrested. What is more, the crackdown, which, like raids in the U.S., is carried out using brutal and results in the imprisonment of migrants in detention center that are no better than prisons, has been the result of 100s of deaths and injuries. The most tragic of this was a fire that broke out at Yeosu Foreigners’ Detention Center on February 11, 2007 killing 10 migrant workers and wounding dozens of others. This event received international attention and also became a catalyst for more unified work between migrant organizations.
The truth is the South Korean economy, like the U.S. economy, needs the labor of undocumented migrant workers, and the government is well aware of this. The recent intense crackdown should, then, not be seen as an effort to solve the undocumented migrant problem in entirety, but instead to reduce the number of undocumented migrants (at 230,000 before August 2007), to the level of estimated need. The crackdown is also clearly a fear tactic used to keep documented migrant workers from leaving their assigned workplaces.
4. Migrant Worker Organizing and the Migrants’ Trade Union
Migrant workers have not been passive in the face of the oppression they face in South Korea, and it is in their resistance that MTU’s history is found. Since soon after they began arriving, migrant workers have come together in communities and formed community organizations in order to aid each other in confronting the difficulties they face. After several years of organizing in this fashion and working in alliance with Korean organizations, migrant workers came together with Korean activists to discuss the formation of a union, the result of which was the founding of the Migrants’ Branch of the Equality Trade Union (ETUMB) in 2002. The activities of ETUMB culminated in a sit-in protest at the Myeongdong Cathedral, a historic site of the South Korean democracy and labor movement, calling for an end to the crackdown and deportations and critiquing the EPS. The sit-in began in November of 2003 and continued for 380 days. In the course of this struggle, migrant worker activist came to believe in the importance of forming an independent union by and for migrant workers themselves. As such, these activists came together with migrant community organizations to form the Seoul-Gyeonggi-Incheon Migrants’ Trade Union on 24 April 2005. MTU is the first independent labor union in which all officers, beginning with the president, are migrant workers.
5. Labor Repression
Since its establishment MTU has faced continuous repression from the South Korea government. MTU’s notification of union establishment was rejected by the Ministry of Labor on the basis that its leadership was made up of undocumented migrant workers without the same legally protected labor rights as Korean workers. The Ministry of Labor’s rejection initially upheld in a district court, but then overturned by the Seoul Supreme Court on 1 February 2007, which ruled that the right of migrant workers to freedom of association is protected under the South Korean Constitution, regardless of their visa status. Refusing to give up, the Ministry of Justice has appealed this decision to the Supreme Court, where a final ruling is still pending.
In addition to this legal process, the South Korean government has also carried out a targeted crackdown against MTU’s leadership in an attempt to stop the union’s activities. MTU’s first president was arrested in a targeted crackdown, soon after the union’s founding and held in a detention center for nearly a year before he was finally released for medical reasons. During the joint crackdown at the end of last year, dozens of MTU leaders were also arrested and deported.
The government’s attack culminated with the arrest of MTU’s President, Vice President and General Secretary on 27 November 2007 all at roughly the same time in the morning at three different places in Seoul. In each case, several immigration officers lay in waiting in front of the man’s house or workplace in what was clearly a pre-planned effort. The three men were detained in Cheongju Detention Center, two and a half hours outside of Seoul. Despite massive protest from MTU, supporters and the international labor and human rights communities, the men were taken secretly from their cells in the middle of the night, taken out a hole in the fence at the back of the detention center to avoid supporters who were guarding the front gate and then deported early in the morning of December 13th.
6. Fighting Back
After the arrest of the three leaders MTU and supporters from the labor movement and civil society began an ardent campaign to win their release, end the repression against migrant organizing and stop the crackdown and deportation of undocumented migrant workers. This campaign has continued despite the three men’s deportation on December 13. It is February now, two months after the MTU leadership was first arrested and nearing the one year anniversary of the tragic fire at Yeosu Detention Center. As we go into a period of memorial for those who passed away, MTU also seeks to raise awareness of the repression against migrant workers and migrant workers’ organizing in South Korea. We are preparing a series of press conference, panels and rallies beginning on February 11 culminating in a nation-wide protest on February 24th. We are asking organizations in working for immigrants/migrants’ rights in other countries to give this period international significance by organizing solidarity actions in front of South Korean embassies and other significant sites.
7. Conclusion
While it is clear that the situation of migrant workers in South Korea is particular to the country’s history, legal system and society, it should also be clear that there are many parallels between the struggles of migrants here and those of migrant/immigrants in the United States and indeed all around the world. The phenomenon of migration cannot be separated from the process of globalization in which we are all engulfed. Like in most other countries, the response to this reality in South Korea is one of policing borders, illegalizing people and exploiting them as a cheap labor force. The tragic fire in Yeosu and the repression against migrant workers’ organizing, then, should not be seen as merely South Korean problems. Rather, they are representative of the human rights and labor rights abuses against migrant workers everywhere. The struggle to win protection of these rights is a global struggle, to which international solidarity- collective sharing of information, strategizing and action- must become a greater part.
The Migrant Workers’ Struggle in South Korea and International Solidarity
Wol-san Liem
International Solidarity Coordinator, Seoul-Gyeonggi-Incheon Migrants’ Trade Union
February 9, 2008
1. Introduction
As the issue of immigration has come to center stage in policy debate in the United States over the last several years, grassroots organizations, NGOs and labor unions have put forth strong calls for increased rights form immigrants, pathways to citizenship and an end to raids and deportations. While organizing, public education and lobbying efforts have been lively, however, as with many movements in the U.S., discussion of the issue’s international dimension has been relatively lacking. In fact, the issues of immigration policy reform and undocumented immigrants/migrants are central to countries across Europe and Asia. At the same time struggles against raids and deportations and for immigrant/migrant workers’ labor and human rights are growing in many of these countries. Of these, the struggle in South Korea is significant for the central role played by undocumented migrant workers organizing as part of the labor movement.
The purpose of this article is to introduce the U.S. immigrant rights movement to the migrant workers movement in South Korea. It focuses on the development and current work of the Seoul-Gyeonggi-Incheon Migrants’ Trade Union, a union build by and for migrant workers regardless of visa status, whose entire leadership is made up of undocumented migrant workers. It also covers the heavy government repression against MTU and ends with a call for solidarity actions in timing with the commemoration of a tragic detention center fire in February of last year and, more widely, greater international solidarity in the immigrant/migrant workers movement worldwide.
II. Background
There are currently roughly 400,000 migrant workers living in South Korea who work in a number of industries, in particular manufacturing and construction, and in services such as restaurants and entertainment. While their numbers may seem small compare to those in the United States, it must be remembered that the history of the current labor migration to South Korea is only twenty-years old, and the country has traditionally implemented strict policies concerning inward migration and long term settlement. In addition, the numbers are steadily rising and migrant workers have become centrally important to the South Korean economy, particularly in specific industries. Migrant workers come from nearly 100 countries including China (Chinese and Chinese of Korean origin), Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bangladesh, Nepal, and West African countries. While conditions, of course, vary depending on industry, country of origin, gender and visa status, migrant works in general face low wages, poor working conditions, ill-treatment at the hands of employers and racism and discrimination from society at large.
Migrant workers first began coming to South Korea in the 1980s, when small and middle-sized manufacturing, construction and other companies began to experience severe labor shortages. Migrant workers, most of whom entered South Korea on tourist or other short-term visas, began to fill this need for additional manpower. Because of the economic necessity, the South Korean government condoned and even encouraged the influx of migrant workers through relaxation of immigration procedures after the 1988 Olympics even before drawing up a formal policy to regulate migrant labor. Eventually, the government developed and implemented the Industrial Trainee System, which brought migrants to South Korea as ‘trainees’ as a way to skirt labor laws concerning wages and work conditions, in order to provide cheap and regulated migrant labor to companies experiencing shortages. This system was severely critiqued by civil society for causing vast abuses of human and labor rights and leading to an increase of undocumented migrants. Negative public opinion forced a change in the system. As such, the government implemented the Employment Permit System (EPS) in 2003, claiming it would protect migrant workers’ rights. This is, however, far from the truth.
III. Employer Permit System
The EPS is currently the main system governing migrant labor in South Korea. While unlike the Trainee System, it does legally acknowledges migrant workers as 'workers', it is in fact designed to preserve the benefits business owners received from the previous system by creating a labor force that is cheap and exploitable.
Under the EPS, migrant workers are prohibited from changing their workplaces at will. If a migrant worker wants to change to another job, he/she must obtain consent from his/her employer and apply to the Ministry of Labor. This process is very difficult for many workers, especially because employers are sometimes unwilling to release their employees. What is more, migrant workers are only allowed to change workplaces three times, except in exceptional circumstances. As such, many migrant workers are stuck at companies where they face unsafe working conditions, low or unpaid wages and inhumane treatment. Female migrant workers are often effectively trapped with employers who sexually harass or abuse them. In addition, because migrant workers are required to renew their contracts each year of the three-year period of the three-year residence period allowed them, they become completely subordinated to the will of their employers, making the exercise of labor rights completely impossible. Finally the sort term 3-year residence period is often not long enough to make enough money to pay off debts incurred during migration and save money to support families back home. The EPS system has, as such, also received strong criticism from human rights, social movement and labor organizations in South Korea and the attention of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants.
IV. Undocumented Migrant Workers and the Current Crackdown
There are over 200,000 undocumented migrant workers in South Korea, more than half of the total population of migrant workers. Many migrant workers have become undocumented by overstaying their visas. This is often inevitable because low-wages make it impossible for migrant workers to save enough money to pay off debts or support their families. Migrant workers may also become undocumented because they are forced to flee difficult conditions at their legally registered workplaces. It is clear that in addition to being an effect of war and neoliberal globalization, which have created situations of unemployment and poverty in migrant-sending countries and vast inequality between nations, the high percent of undocumented migrant workers in South Korea is a direct result of the government misguided policy governing the migrant labor force.
While acknowledging undocumented migrants as a serious social problem, the government has made no effort to find a root-level solution. Instead it has, since 2003, carried out a brutal policy of crackdown and deportation against undocumented migrant workers. This, however, has done nothing to reduce their numbers, which continued to increase after the EPS was implemented. Most recently, a mass joint crackdown (carried out by the Ministry of Labor, the Immigration Authorities and the police) was carried out from August to December in 2007 during which thousands were arrested. What is more, the crackdown, which, like raids in the U.S., is carried out using brutal and results in the imprisonment of migrants in detention center that are no better than prisons, has been the result of 100s of deaths and injuries. The most tragic of this was a fire that broke out at Yeosu Foreigners’ Detention Center on February 11, 2007 killing 10 migrant workers and wounding dozens of others. This event received international attention and also became a catalyst for more unified work between migrant organizations.
The truth is the South Korean economy, like the U.S. economy, needs the labor of undocumented migrant workers, and the government is well aware of this. The recent intense crackdown should, then, not be seen as an effort to solve the undocumented migrant problem in entirety, but instead to reduce the number of undocumented migrants (at 230,000 before August 2007), to the level of estimated need. The crackdown is also clearly a fear tactic used to keep documented migrant workers from leaving their assigned workplaces.
4. Migrant Worker Organizing and the Migrants’ Trade Union
Migrant workers have not been passive in the face of the oppression they face in South Korea, and it is in their resistance that MTU’s history is found. Since soon after they began arriving, migrant workers have come together in communities and formed community organizations in order to aid each other in confronting the difficulties they face. After several years of organizing in this fashion and working in alliance with Korean organizations, migrant workers came together with Korean activists to discuss the formation of a union, the result of which was the founding of the Migrants’ Branch of the Equality Trade Union (ETUMB) in 2002. The activities of ETUMB culminated in a sit-in protest at the Myeongdong Cathedral, a historic site of the South Korean democracy and labor movement, calling for an end to the crackdown and deportations and critiquing the EPS. The sit-in began in November of 2003 and continued for 380 days. In the course of this struggle, migrant worker activist came to believe in the importance of forming an independent union by and for migrant workers themselves. As such, these activists came together with migrant community organizations to form the Seoul-Gyeonggi-Incheon Migrants’ Trade Union on 24 April 2005. MTU is the first independent labor union in which all officers, beginning with the president, are migrant workers.
5. Labor Repression
Since its establishment MTU has faced continuous repression from the South Korea government. MTU’s notification of union establishment was rejected by the Ministry of Labor on the basis that its leadership was made up of undocumented migrant workers without the same legally protected labor rights as Korean workers. The Ministry of Labor’s rejection initially upheld in a district court, but then overturned by the Seoul Supreme Court on 1 February 2007, which ruled that the right of migrant workers to freedom of association is protected under the South Korean Constitution, regardless of their visa status. Refusing to give up, the Ministry of Justice has appealed this decision to the Supreme Court, where a final ruling is still pending.
In addition to this legal process, the South Korean government has also carried out a targeted crackdown against MTU’s leadership in an attempt to stop the union’s activities. MTU’s first president was arrested in a targeted crackdown, soon after the union’s founding and held in a detention center for nearly a year before he was finally released for medical reasons. During the joint crackdown at the end of last year, dozens of MTU leaders were also arrested and deported.
The government’s attack culminated with the arrest of MTU’s President, Vice President and General Secretary on 27 November 2007 all at roughly the same time in the morning at three different places in Seoul. In each case, several immigration officers lay in waiting in front of the man’s house or workplace in what was clearly a pre-planned effort. The three men were detained in Cheongju Detention Center, two and a half hours outside of Seoul. Despite massive protest from MTU, supporters and the international labor and human rights communities, the men were taken secretly from their cells in the middle of the night, taken out a hole in the fence at the back of the detention center to avoid supporters who were guarding the front gate and then deported early in the morning of December 13th.
6. Fighting Back
After the arrest of the three leaders MTU and supporters from the labor movement and civil society began an ardent campaign to win their release, end the repression against migrant organizing and stop the crackdown and deportation of undocumented migrant workers. This campaign has continued despite the three men’s deportation on December 13. It is February now, two months after the MTU leadership was first arrested and nearing the one year anniversary of the tragic fire at Yeosu Detention Center. As we go into a period of memorial for those who passed away, MTU also seeks to raise awareness of the repression against migrant workers and migrant workers’ organizing in South Korea. We are preparing a series of press conference, panels and rallies beginning on February 11 culminating in a nation-wide protest on February 24th. We are asking organizations in working for immigrants/migrants’ rights in other countries to give this period international significance by organizing solidarity actions in front of South Korean embassies and other significant sites.
7. Conclusion
While it is clear that the situation of migrant workers in South Korea is particular to the country’s history, legal system and society, it should also be clear that there are many parallels between the struggles of migrants here and those of migrant/immigrants in the United States and indeed all around the world. The phenomenon of migration cannot be separated from the process of globalization in which we are all engulfed. Like in most other countries, the response to this reality in South Korea is one of policing borders, illegalizing people and exploiting them as a cheap labor force. The tragic fire in Yeosu and the repression against migrant workers’ organizing, then, should not be seen as merely South Korean problems. Rather, they are representative of the human rights and labor rights abuses against migrant workers everywhere. The struggle to win protection of these rights is a global struggle, to which international solidarity- collective sharing of information, strategizing and action- must become a greater part.
Right wing unionism
A few years ago it seemed that the FKTU was becoming a little more progressive, perhaps trying to cast off the image of the government-controlled union they used to be during the dictatorship era. They even held protests, and made joint declarations with the KCTU. Lately it seems that they've been drifting back rightward, well at least their national leadership, who recently declared their intention to not press for higher wages.
No wage demands, labor boss promises
February 29, 2008
The new head of the moderate Federation of Korean Trade Unions, one of the nation’s two large umbrella labor groups, surprised union members yesterday by saying he would not press employers for higher wages this year.
You can read the whole article here.
No wage demands, labor boss promises
February 29, 2008
The new head of the moderate Federation of Korean Trade Unions, one of the nation’s two large umbrella labor groups, surprised union members yesterday by saying he would not press employers for higher wages this year.
You can read the whole article here.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
solidarity with migrants in Korea
I picked this up from CINA.
Before y'day(2.25) in Montreal/CN..
..a delegation representing the following migrant justice groups:
- Coalition In Support of Agricultural Workers-Quebec
- Immigrant Workers Center of Montreal
- Migrant Agricultural Workers Support Centre-Quebec
- No One Is Illegal-Montreal
- PINAY, the Filipino Women's Organization in Quebec
- Solidarity Across Borders
delivered a protest letter to the S. Korean consulate in Montreal:
"Once again, concerned members of the Montreal community are making direct contact with your consular officials, to bring to your attention the injustices and abuses faced by migrant workers in South Korea. We would like you to bring these concerns to the immediate attention of officials at the highest levels of the Korean government.
This month marks the first anniversary of the tragic fire at the Yeosu Foreigners' Detention Center (February 11, 2007), which killed ten migrant workers and wounded dozens more. This event was a direct result of the South Korean government's policy of crackdown and deportation of undocumented migrant workers and the poor conditions in detention centers.
A year later nothing has changed and repression against migrant workers and migrant workers' organizing continues. The government has carried out a severe attack against the Migrants' Trade Union (MTU), a union built by and for migrant workers, arresting and deporting its leadership in a targeted crackdown at the end of last year. It is also attempting to change South Korean immigration law to make it legal to enter buildings without warrants during immigration raids and stop anyone on the street "suspected of being an undocumented migrant."
We support the main demands of self-organized migrant justice groups in South Korea: stop the crackdown and deportations; legalize all undocumented migrant workers; stop the repression against MTU and migrant workers' organizing; & stop the worsening of immigration law.
Yesterday, on February 24, a nationwide rally was held in South Korea in support of these demands. We visit your offices today to re-iterate those just demands, and to stand in solidarity with the demonstrators on the streets of South Korea's cities and towns.
The migrant workers of South Korea are not alone. Locally, we struggle too against deportations and detentions, against exploitive "temporary work" programs and employers, and for workers democracy and dignity in the workplace.
We will continue to visit your office in protest until the demands of self-organized workers in South Korea and met.
An injury to one is an injury to all.
Signed,
Coalition In Support of Agricultural Workers-Quebec
Immigrant Workers Center of Montreal
Migrant Agricultural Workers Support Centre-Quebec
No One Is Illegal-Montreal
PINAY, the Filipino Women's Organization in Quebec
Solidarity Across Borders"
For more pics, please see also:
*****
Already Feb. 16 there was a Candle Light Protest in NYC/U.S.A.:
And last but not least.. here you can read
☞ KASAMMAKO's protest message ..for last Sunday's MTU rally!
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Video of weekly MTU vigil
The MTU and their supporters have been continuing their weekly vigils since the their entire leadership was arrested and deported in December, and more members have been deported since then. It's also been a year since the horrific Yeosu fire, not to mention that factory fire last fall that claimed a number of migrant workers. So it is certainly important for the MTU and their supporters to continue this important work. Here's the link to the video via CINA.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Some statistics
Just to back up a bit of what I said below.
These statistics come from the yearly 2006 and 2007 'selected issues' reports from the IMF on Korea, available at their online archive here.
Wish this graphed the divergence between labour productivity and real wages back further (say to 1990) so one could grasp the larger trend. The dip in 2001 was probably from the credit crisis and a bit of a hangover from the 1997 crisis. At any rate, post-2002 it is clear that incomes are not rising with increased productivity.
I believe this figure (from SERI) is higher now, anyways, that exports and inequality seem to be going up together is certainly a indicator that not much is trickling down.
This last one is from a 2007 OECD report on labour market duality in Korea, it uses one of the more conservative measures of levels of irregular work (it does not include regular workers who are not paid bonuses and overtime which would make the 2005 figure approx 47%) but it still looks damning in comparision nonetheless.
The figure to look for here is adjusted consumption figure for Korea. The point here is that domestic consumption as % of GDP lags, link.
These statistics come from the yearly 2006 and 2007 'selected issues' reports from the IMF on Korea, available at their online archive here.
Wish this graphed the divergence between labour productivity and real wages back further (say to 1990) so one could grasp the larger trend. The dip in 2001 was probably from the credit crisis and a bit of a hangover from the 1997 crisis. At any rate, post-2002 it is clear that incomes are not rising with increased productivity.
I believe this figure (from SERI) is higher now, anyways, that exports and inequality seem to be going up together is certainly a indicator that not much is trickling down.
This last one is from a 2007 OECD report on labour market duality in Korea, it uses one of the more conservative measures of levels of irregular work (it does not include regular workers who are not paid bonuses and overtime which would make the 2005 figure approx 47%) but it still looks damning in comparision nonetheless.
The figure to look for here is adjusted consumption figure for Korea. The point here is that domestic consumption as % of GDP lags, link.
Income inequality worsening
One good article and another editorial in the Hankyoreh today on the increasing amount of income inequality.
Here's a sample:
The silver lining to all this may be the following:
Here's a sample:
As the gap between rich and poor is expected to increase, the statistics typified a phenomenon that South Korea is facing: the co-existence of rich households with more income than those in a developed economy and poor households with income equivalent to those in an underdeveloped economy. Last year, the average monthly income of the bottom 20 percent households was 1,329,307 won (US$1,407). Given the average number of family members, 2.87, and a won-dollar exchange rate of 929.20, the annual per-capita income of the bottom 20 percent of the population was calculated at $5,982. In contrast, the average monthly income of the upper 20 percent of households was 7,234,415 won. With 3.64 family members, the annual per-capita income of the upper 20 percent was $25,667. According to worldwide income statistics for 2006, released by the World Bank, the standard of living of the bottom 20 percent of the population is similar to that of people living in Gabon and El Salvador, while the standard of living of the upper 20 percent is similar to that of people living in Australia and New Zealand.
The silver lining to all this may be the following:
According to recent surveys executed by Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun and Britain’s BBC, Korea has the highest ratio of people who are dissatisfied with socioeconomic polarization. Up to 86 percent of Koreans are discontent with the nation’s income disparity.I guess this is the major factor distinguishing inequality in Korea vs. other countries like the UK or the US, where people seem much more comfortable with the income gap, preferring to regard it as a failure of the individual rather than society. No such analysis seems possible in Korea yet -- I suppose because the memory of the developmental dictatorship, the economic crisis, and the clear structural biases of the different economic models Korea has followed (developmental dictatorship and some sort of chaebol-style or export push style neoliberalism) have always been apparent because of the rapid pace of economic mobilization (of getting people to work under bad conditions in export manufacturing to the neglect of domestic social issues and economic welfare), change (like flexibilizing the already precarious through their employment status), and reform (IMF and other shock therapy like labour legislation, FTAs, etc). All this creates winners and losers, or especially bitter losers judging as compensation for them is extremely low, just look at the figures on total welfare expenditure compared to other countries and you will see what I mean.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
New Seoulidarity video
CINA has just posted a newly translated video from Cinema Soulidarity about migrant and irregular worker struggles in Korea. Here is the link.
Yet another senseless death
From today's JoongAng Ilbo:
A lonely death underscores sad migrants¨ plight
Immigration officials sympathize but say laws must be followed
February 11, 2008
A lonely death underscores sad migrants¨ plight
Immigration officials sympathize but say laws must be followed
February 11, 2008
Migrant workers stage a rally to protest a recent crackdown on illegal workers on Jan. 20 in Jongno, central Seoul. Advocates say Korea¨s 223,000 illegal workers often take jobs no one else wants. [NEWSIS]
＾For the first time in eight years, I saw my mom. She was lying cold on a slab at a morgue,￣ said Oh Jeong-hwa at a mourning altar for her mother at Seoul National University Hospital last week.
Oh¨s mother, Kwon Bong-ok, died on Jan. 15 after falling from the 8th floor of a motel in Seoul where she was working as an illegal immigrant. She had been dangling from the window ledge by her fingers to hide from South Korean immigration officers hunting for illegals.
The 51-year-old ethnic Korean from China came to Seoul in 1999 to earn money to pay off a family debt and provide college tuition for Oh. ＾My mother called me the day before she died and told me that she would come back to China soon. She said she missed me so much,￣ Oh said.
With the death of another migrant worker during an enforcement crackdown, the Korean Immigration Service has been facing criticism for its policies. Civic groups held a street rally last month to protest against the service¨s ＾merciless￣ inspection of workers.
Oh demanded that the service make an official apology for driving her mother into a corner. ＾How scared she must have been,￣ Oh lamented.
＾During past immigration inspections, several illegal aliens died after falling from buildings; some even committed suicide because they could not stand the pressure,￣ said Kim Hae-seong, the chairman of the Korea Migrants¨ Center, a support group.
The immigration service, however, says that sentiment is not the way to handle the issue of illegal immigration. With civic groups and some media emphasizing the hardships faced by illegal aliens, they neglect the fact that local laws are being violated and the service¨s enforcement efforts are hindered, immigration officials say. ＾We feel really sorry for her loss,￣ said Kim Young-geun, an official at the service. ＾Still, the inspection was conducted in accordance with the law and we cannot apologize for that.￣
According to the Justice Ministry, there were an estimated 223,000 illegal aliens in the country as of last year. About 22,000 illegal migrants were caught and deported last year, down from 23,000 in 2006, according to the service.
The risks of combating illegal immigration, say officials, run both ways. On Jan. 30, an immigration officer was stabbed in the thigh by a Bangladeshi illegal migrant who was trying to flee an inspection raid. Twenty immigration officers were injured last year, compared to six during similar enforcement drives in 2004, according to the service.
＾Because the media and civic groups protect illegal workers¨ rights, some illegals do not respect the officers¨ authority and are not afraid of attacking them,￣ said another official, who refused to be named.
According to police, Kwon locked herself in a room after she found out an inspection was underway at the motel in Jongno where she was working as a maid. When the officers opened the door after about 10 minutes, she had already fallen to her death eight floors below.
＾I went to the motel and I saw her fingerprints on the window sill. Her cell phone, the one she called me on the day before, was broken in half,￣ said Oh.
The immigration service¨s Kim claimed it was an unfortunate accident and that Kwon was likely trying to escape from the eighth floor to a seventh-floor window. ＾The gap between the two floors was just 1.5 meters (4.9 feet),￣ he said. ＾We agree with her family that she did not commit suicide. We think something went wrong while she was trying to go down.￣
Oh, who came to Seoul on Jan. 20 after learning of her mother¨s death, delayed the funeral until Feb. 5. ＾I was waiting for an apology from the inspection officers. But I decided to hold a funeral because I could not make her stay in a cold morgue during the Lunar New Year,￣ said Oh.
The director of the immigration service, Hwang Taek-hwan, attended the funeral but no official apology was made.
Migrant Trade Unions, a labor union of migrant workers in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province, also has been holding daily protests since Dec. 13 after three Nepalese, who had been executive members of the union, were deported. The union and the Korea Confederation of Trade Unions argue that the service targeted union members.
＾They had lived here illegally for more than a decade. One forged his passport when he entered the country. It was an absolutely just decision [to deport them],￣ said the service¨s Kim.
The plight of the migrants, however, is understandable, said the migrant center¨s Kim. ＾Many paid a lump sum to a broker to come to Korea. They try to stay until at least they can pay back their debts,￣ he explained.
Soon Goon-saeng, a 40-year-old Chinese man, was one such worker. On Nov. 25, he was confronted by immigration officers as he was leaving a church service. He jumped from a third floor rooftop to the ground. He suffered two broken ankles and has been through two operations.
＾I paid 10 million won ($10,619) to a broker to come to Korea. If I return to China without paying back the debt, I will be harassed everyday,￣ said Soon, who has been hospitalized at a hospital run by the Migrant Workers¨ Center.
The center¨s Chairman Kim said the government should embrace illegal migrant workers by introducing a system in which they can go back to their country and return here with a valid visa. There is demand for their services and they do work that many Koreans no longer want to do, he said.
＾Most illegal migrant workers worked here for years before their visa expired. I think it would be waste for the government to force such experienced workers to leave the country,￣ said Kim.
Currently, foreign migrant workers are allowed to work under an employment permit system, which went into effect in 2004. Under the system, a worker can stay for up to three years and renew the visa for another three years the employee agrees.
For Oh, it is too late to worry about reforming a system that she believes is responsible for her mother¨s death. ＾I just hope there will be no one who suffers like my mother any more,￣ said Oh, sitting at the mourning altar alone.
Park Yeon-soo contributed to this article.
By Kim Soe-jung Staff Reporter [soejung@joongang.co.kr]
A lonely death underscores sad migrants¨ plight
Immigration officials sympathize but say laws must be followed
February 11, 2008
 | |
A lonely death underscores sad migrants¨ plight
Immigration officials sympathize but say laws must be followed
February 11, 2008
Migrant workers stage a rally to protest a recent crackdown on illegal workers on Jan. 20 in Jongno, central Seoul. Advocates say Korea¨s 223,000 illegal workers often take jobs no one else wants. [NEWSIS]
＾For the first time in eight years, I saw my mom. She was lying cold on a slab at a morgue,￣ said Oh Jeong-hwa at a mourning altar for her mother at Seoul National University Hospital last week.
Oh¨s mother, Kwon Bong-ok, died on Jan. 15 after falling from the 8th floor of a motel in Seoul where she was working as an illegal immigrant. She had been dangling from the window ledge by her fingers to hide from South Korean immigration officers hunting for illegals.
The 51-year-old ethnic Korean from China came to Seoul in 1999 to earn money to pay off a family debt and provide college tuition for Oh. ＾My mother called me the day before she died and told me that she would come back to China soon. She said she missed me so much,￣ Oh said.
With the death of another migrant worker during an enforcement crackdown, the Korean Immigration Service has been facing criticism for its policies. Civic groups held a street rally last month to protest against the service¨s ＾merciless￣ inspection of workers.
Oh demanded that the service make an official apology for driving her mother into a corner. ＾How scared she must have been,￣ Oh lamented.
＾During past immigration inspections, several illegal aliens died after falling from buildings; some even committed suicide because they could not stand the pressure,￣ said Kim Hae-seong, the chairman of the Korea Migrants¨ Center, a support group.
The immigration service, however, says that sentiment is not the way to handle the issue of illegal immigration. With civic groups and some media emphasizing the hardships faced by illegal aliens, they neglect the fact that local laws are being violated and the service¨s enforcement efforts are hindered, immigration officials say. ＾We feel really sorry for her loss,￣ said Kim Young-geun, an official at the service. ＾Still, the inspection was conducted in accordance with the law and we cannot apologize for that.￣
According to the Justice Ministry, there were an estimated 223,000 illegal aliens in the country as of last year. About 22,000 illegal migrants were caught and deported last year, down from 23,000 in 2006, according to the service.
The risks of combating illegal immigration, say officials, run both ways. On Jan. 30, an immigration officer was stabbed in the thigh by a Bangladeshi illegal migrant who was trying to flee an inspection raid. Twenty immigration officers were injured last year, compared to six during similar enforcement drives in 2004, according to the service.
＾Because the media and civic groups protect illegal workers¨ rights, some illegals do not respect the officers¨ authority and are not afraid of attacking them,￣ said another official, who refused to be named.
According to police, Kwon locked herself in a room after she found out an inspection was underway at the motel in Jongno where she was working as a maid. When the officers opened the door after about 10 minutes, she had already fallen to her death eight floors below.
＾I went to the motel and I saw her fingerprints on the window sill. Her cell phone, the one she called me on the day before, was broken in half,￣ said Oh.
The immigration service¨s Kim claimed it was an unfortunate accident and that Kwon was likely trying to escape from the eighth floor to a seventh-floor window. ＾The gap between the two floors was just 1.5 meters (4.9 feet),￣ he said. ＾We agree with her family that she did not commit suicide. We think something went wrong while she was trying to go down.￣
Oh, who came to Seoul on Jan. 20 after learning of her mother¨s death, delayed the funeral until Feb. 5. ＾I was waiting for an apology from the inspection officers. But I decided to hold a funeral because I could not make her stay in a cold morgue during the Lunar New Year,￣ said Oh.
The director of the immigration service, Hwang Taek-hwan, attended the funeral but no official apology was made.
Migrant Trade Unions, a labor union of migrant workers in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province, also has been holding daily protests since Dec. 13 after three Nepalese, who had been executive members of the union, were deported. The union and the Korea Confederation of Trade Unions argue that the service targeted union members.
＾They had lived here illegally for more than a decade. One forged his passport when he entered the country. It was an absolutely just decision [to deport them],￣ said the service¨s Kim.
The plight of the migrants, however, is understandable, said the migrant center¨s Kim. ＾Many paid a lump sum to a broker to come to Korea. They try to stay until at least they can pay back their debts,￣ he explained.
Soon Goon-saeng, a 40-year-old Chinese man, was one such worker. On Nov. 25, he was confronted by immigration officers as he was leaving a church service. He jumped from a third floor rooftop to the ground. He suffered two broken ankles and has been through two operations.
＾I paid 10 million won ($10,619) to a broker to come to Korea. If I return to China without paying back the debt, I will be harassed everyday,￣ said Soon, who has been hospitalized at a hospital run by the Migrant Workers¨ Center.
The center¨s Chairman Kim said the government should embrace illegal migrant workers by introducing a system in which they can go back to their country and return here with a valid visa. There is demand for their services and they do work that many Koreans no longer want to do, he said.
＾Most illegal migrant workers worked here for years before their visa expired. I think it would be waste for the government to force such experienced workers to leave the country,￣ said Kim.
Currently, foreign migrant workers are allowed to work under an employment permit system, which went into effect in 2004. Under the system, a worker can stay for up to three years and renew the visa for another three years the employee agrees.
For Oh, it is too late to worry about reforming a system that she believes is responsible for her mother¨s death. ＾I just hope there will be no one who suffers like my mother any more,￣ said Oh, sitting at the mourning altar alone.
Park Yeon-soo contributed to this article.
By Kim Soe-jung Staff Reporter [soejung@joongang.co.kr]
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
before the abyss
I'm sort of in another slow posting period as the dissertation work heats up and certainly not because there is a lack of interesting news out there, and more to come as Lee Myung Bak is inaugurated.
For the moment, I would suggest keeping an eye on the Hankyoreh and on Chamsesang's new English service Newscham. There are interesting stories on both those sites about the Taean disaster, the split in the KDLP, and the slow emergence of Lee Myung Bak-ism all of which make a grim time for Korean progressive forces (hence the abyss) but also hopefully one that leads to better clarity and opportunity later.
Oh, and Matt's blog Gusts of Popular Feeling and his continuing play-by-play on the urban redevelopment of Seoul is not to be missed.
For the moment, I would suggest keeping an eye on the Hankyoreh and on Chamsesang's new English service Newscham. There are interesting stories on both those sites about the Taean disaster, the split in the KDLP, and the slow emergence of Lee Myung Bak-ism all of which make a grim time for Korean progressive forces (hence the abyss) but also hopefully one that leads to better clarity and opportunity later.
Oh, and Matt's blog Gusts of Popular Feeling and his continuing play-by-play on the urban redevelopment of Seoul is not to be missed.
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