From: SCIENCE@MITVMA.BITNET
Newsgroups: soc.culture.korean
Subject: Maoist review of book on southern K. labor
Date: 28 Jul 92 01:09:03 GMT



Written August 1991

Maoist Internationalist Movement
science@mitvma.mit.edu

South Korea: Dissent Within the Economic Miracle
by George E. Ogle
London: Zed Books, 1990, 184 pp.

With a description of the economic and organizing conditions of the Korean
workers in the South, this book is a great reminder of what the international
proletariat really is.

To be sure, the author is a Christian missionary with a Ph.D. in sociology,
who wishes for bourgeois democracy for workers in Korea. Yet, compared
with innumerable  imperialist "Left" analyses of organizing white labor,
South Korea comes much closer to achieving an internationalist analysis.
From experience living in Korea over 14 years and from organizing Korean
workers, Ogle is aware of the real exploitation and superexploitation of the

Korean workers. Amerikan labor organizers can get something to compare
their experience with by reading South Korea.

Imperialism
The conditions of Korean workers largely stem from the international
situation. In 1905, the U.S. Secretary of War, William Howard Taft made a
deal with Japan to allow the Japanese occupation of Korea in exchange for
Japanese non-interference in U.S. rule in the Philippines. (p. 2)
During the Japanese occupation, Korea developed so that by 1944 20% of its
formerly agricultural labor force had become involved in industrial
undertakings. (p. 8)

With the ouster of the Japanese imperialists in 1945, the Soviet-backed
forces moved into what is now referred to as North Korea and refrained from
occupying southern Korea. Instead, in the South, Koreans rose up to govern
themselves, establishing "people's committees" and a "People's Republic."  (p.
7)

This republic lasted only a few days because the Amerikans landed and
established their own rule of law-- the definition of colonialism. Among the
laws the United States implemented were laws concerning recognition of
unions.  Chun Pyung, the country's largest union federation possibly
representing a majority of Korean workers did not recognize the Amerikan
law, but employers and their puppet unions did. More importantly, the law
unleashed employer thugs on the Chun Pyung and destroyed it. (pp. 8-10)
From that time onward phony unions represented the workers in Korea until
the late 1980s. Attempts to form independent unions have always met
violence from the state and capitalist-hired thugs in Korea.

With 30,000 troops in Korea to this day, the United States helps to maintain
a regime oppressing workers for the benefit of South Korean capitalists and
Amerikans.  For example, on May 17, 1980, General Chun Doo Hwan declared
martial law. The next day, paramilitary forces massacred dozens of students
staging demonstrations against martial law. When citizens rallied to the
students' side, paratroops killed hundreds more, leaving at least 500 dead in
the Kwangju massacre. In response, the masses rose up and drove the army
out of the city and took control for five days.  In those five days, the United
States turned down Kwangju's request for help. Instead, the U.S. military
command supported and possibly directed the military massacre of
hundreds of people in the Kwangju uprising. Scores more were killed when
the army retook Kwangju. (pp. 95-7)

Dealing with Japanese imperialism before World War II and after World
War II when it traded places with Japanese occupiers, establishing their own
colonial laws, and aiding in the violent suppression of Korean workers and
students in 1945 and 1980, the U.S. imperialists have many blood debts to
the Korean people without counting the Korean War.

Corrupt Amerikan union
The Korean case also demonstrates the basic unity between U.S.
imperialists and the white working class.
Korean garment workers organizing a real union in the 1970s gave up a
martyr in the struggle and gained national support in Korea, but failed to
move the AFL-CIO. When police moved to close down the garment union in
1971, the AFL-CIO failed to back the workers. As a result, twenty-one
Korean workers took over the AFL-CIO office and held its director hostage
while issuing demands for independent unions. (p. 103)

Ogle points out that this is not an isolated occurrence. Throughout their
struggles, the Korean people have received little to no solidarity from
workers or other forces in the United States.

The AFL-CIO only stands out in this lack of solidarity because it is the
largest labor organization in the United States. Ogle sums up the AFL-CIO
role this way: "The AFL-CIO established its Asia-American Free Labor
Institute (AAFLI) in Seoul in 1971. For the next sixteen years it cooperated
actively with the KCIA-appointed leaders of the FKTU [the federation of
phony unions in southern Korea-- MC5]. It provided thousands of United
States AID dollars to the FKTU. Never was it recorded, however, that the
ICFTU or AAFLI stood with the workers or unions against oppression. In the
1970Us when the women workers at Dongil Textile were being beaten and
humiliated, they were silent. In the early 1980's when the male unionists
were being thrown in prison or beaten by the kusadae, not a word was
heard from international unions. Workers in Korea know little about ICFTU,
and have come to believe that AAFLI is an agent of the American
government, not a legitimate union operation at all." (p. 175)
How right those Korean workers are! The AFL-CIO is allied with the U.S.
imperialists and abroad they are interchangeable in representing the
interests of U.S. empire. To have a successful movement, the Korean workers
would be right not to count on the AFL-CIO or other white worker
organizations for support.

In the United States, some "Leftists" would say that the AFL-CIO position is
simply that of its corrupt leadership and not that of Amerikan workers.
However, MIM notes that the Amerikan workers never oust their leaders
despite various outrages commited around the world. This leaves the
"Leftists" in the position of saying the Amerikan workers lack class
consciousness which will come about under the correct leadership.
Meanwhile, in Korea, despite having four different kinds of paramilitary
and military forces to oppose, despite the regime's torture and killings of
activists, labor activists rise up not just to replace their union leaders but
to                 organize entirely new unions to replace the corrupt and
 phony unions.
The reason for the different response of the Korean and Amerikan workers
in the class struggle must be sought in material conditions, not union
leadership.

Use of violence
In the United States, one sign of the alliance between the Amerikan
workers and the U.S. imperialists is that rarely do labor organizers face

violence from the state or end up in jail. Such conflict is the exception not
the rule.

 Instead, Amerikan labor and the U.S. imperialists negotiate their positions
like the true partners they are. Of course, just as when capitalists negotiate
with capitalists, there will be tiffs. Capitalists may end purchase and supply
contracts with each other; they may stipulate conditions necessary for doing
business at all. They may play rough in a million ways, but they will not
generally torture, kill or imprison each other.

Unlike the situation of white workers in the United States, the state and
employers in Korea regularly deploy violence against workers. In addition to
the use of thugs by employers to break unions, protests and strikes, there is
also the government's Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA), which
carries off suspected organizers for torture, blackmail and sometimes
bribery. Local police also work closely with employers to physically break
the back of the labor movement, not to mention the army when the
oppressorsU control breaks down more completely.

Conditions of work
The main reason the Amerikan state does not come down much on white
workers is that the white workers are neither superexploited nor exploited
in general. The white workers donUt have many complaints and see
themselves in essential unity with their employers. In contrast, the state in
Korea is constantly called on to back the exploitation and superexploitation
of Korean workers.

The Korean workers of today face long hours for low pay. While Amerikan
workers were averaging 35 or 36 hours of work a week, Korean workers
were organizing for the privilege of having a 44 hour work week.
Under Japanese occupation, the Korean workers existed in virtual slavery
with Japanese police backing up Japanese employers in the workplace. (p. 3)

Today there is perhaps more choice, but the conditions are often still
reminiscent of what Karl Marx knew of workers in the Industrial Revolution
in Europe.

An example is the Pico Products, Inc., which is a U.S. company that
operated in Korea. It paid workers $6.20 a day. When a union formed, it
simply left the country without informing any Koreans, even in management.

Since Pico did not pay any of its debts including its last month's pay to
workers, Korean workers are now struggling to have this issue settled in
court (p. 173) and there is a small solidarity movement in the United States
on behalf of the Pico workers.

Conclusion
Mired in give-me-a-piece-of-the-pie imperialist white chauvinism, the
Amerikan pro-"labor" "Left" would do well to read this book. Information in
South Korea on the U.S. foreign policy role, U.S. multinational corporations,
the pathbreaking role of women labor organizers, the strikes and
independent union movements, the student movement, the established
dissident movement, the history of work conditions, the continued existence
of fascism after the supposed arrival of democracy in 1987 and the rapid
industrial development of the Korean economy all make possible a
knowledge of the Korean segment of the international proletariat. MIM
should distribute this book to fill a large hole in MIM's repertoire.
-MC5
Xref: sparky soc.culture.korean:3317 soc.culture.japan:6180 sci.archaeology:2352