A decade ago, South Korea exploded in a great wave of student and worker strikes and demonstrations. That 1987 struggle forced the regime to democratise somewhat. In 1992, former dissident Kim Young Sam was elected president. But Kim was quickly compelled to follow policies which served the interests of the chaebols (the conglomerates like Hyundai, LG and Samsung) — and the transnational corporations and banks whose loans have fuelled the fantastic rates of growth in the South Korean economy.
By the winter of 1996-7, Kim was trying to push through a “modernisation” of South Korea’s labour laws which would have continued restrictions on trade union rights while simultaneously making it easier for employers to fire workers. His attempt to “reform” South Korea’s labour laws was answered by the first general political strike in the country in more than a generation. Hundreds of thousands of workers led by the semi-legal Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) walked off their jobs, took to the streets in massive demonstrations, prevented the Government from arresting their leaders and in the end won important concessions.
I visited Seoul last November. I was there as the guest of the KCTU not because I have some particular interest in or knowledge of the Korean situation, but because of my expertise regarding the Internet. (I had written a book on the subject.)
The KCTU and their allies in the various labour support groups have made the most impressive use of the Internet ever by a national trade union movement. Their general strike website with its daily (and more frequent) reports kept the international labour movement informed and involved in their struggle. (It is still online, for those who want to see a living example of how a labour movement can use the network as a weapon: http://kpd.sing-kr.org/strike/).
Even after the general strike ended, the South Korean unions continued to use the net — and increasingly the web — to further their cause. They launched an extensive website to promote the sacked workers at Sammi Special Steel, who were on prolonged hunger strike, as well as to fight the introduction of a high-tech national identity card.
By November 1997, they were ready to host an international conference to discuss how the unions in South Korea and elsewhere could use the new media, including both the net and video. For about a week, a handful of us from outside Korea — including Chris Bailey of LabourNet and myself — and a few dozen Korean activists met and discussed the new technology. By mid-week, the conference organizers summoned us for a late-night discussion of the formation of a “global labournet.”
A month after we left Seoul, presidential elections were held. The hopes of some in the KCTU that the candidacy of their leader, Kwon Young-kil, would bear fruit were dashed as he received barely more than 1% of the vote. (A media blackout of Kwon’s campaign didn’t help the incipient labour party known as Peoples’ Victory 21.)
Instead, the veteran dissident Kim Dae Jung was elected. Immediately after his election, without even pausing for breath, Kim announced that all his campaign rhetoric about “re-negotiating” the bailout agreement with the IMF was just a bluff. Kim committed himself to honouring all agreements made by the previous government, thus guaranteeing a renewal of the general strike.
As I write these words, South Korea is in a state of flux. It has received the largest injection of capital ever doled out by the IMF. Its own officials are already talking about massive increases in unemployment in the months to come, and one after another the chaebols are downsizing and in some cases going bankrupt. Kim Dae Jung is due to be inaugurated as President only in late February. But it seems as if the Korean unions cannot wait. Led by the workers in the financial sector and at Hyundai, discussions of how and when to strike are already taking place.
South Korea’s slow evolution into a liberal democracy seems to have been halted by the sudden economic crisis. International capital working through the IMF has imposed conditions on the Government in Seoul which will ensure massive social unrest — and possibly state repression.
The KCTU will once again be leading South Korean workers in struggle. To survive an assault by the state, it will need massive international support. That support will have to be delivered immediately, in real time, as the events take place. The rapid flow of information between the Korean labour movement and the outside world is essential.
The “global labournet” being pushed by the South Korean unionists is therefore not some far-out techno-vision, but a real need. Without vastly improved international labour communications, the South Korean labour movement faces the danger of suppression.
As the next wave of struggle breaks out, we will be there with them and for them, building support, focussing international attention on South Korea, spreading the word, and we’ll be doing it online, using the net.