The South Korean right-wing government, led by its president Yoon Suk-yeol, has been reinforcing a series of attacks on workers’ rights and unions in recent months. The government’s anti-worker and anti-union traits have been inherent since its inauguration last May. But they became blatant since successfully repressing truck drivers’ second strike last November to December, which demanded the enlargement of a standard-fare system that means a minimum wage for ostensibly self-employed truck drivers. The right-wing government's relentless attacks after that have made building a powerful general strike an urgent task for workers' counterattack.

The right-wing government’s attacks on workers’ rights and unions

In December, the government announced its intention to introduce a reactionary labor reform, including a measure to allow extending the working hours a week. According to the current labor law, the work week can’t exceed 40 hours. But if there is an agreement between the employee and employer, the work week can extend to 52 hours with 12 hours of overtime. And the law allows a flexible work system within six months, in which the work week can extend to 52 hours, 64 hours when overtime is added, in a specific week on the premise that the average work week doesn’t exceed 40 hours in the whole period. This government plans to extend the cap of the work week of a particular week in a new flexible work system. According to this government’s draft bill announced on March 6, the maximum work week in a certain week will be allowed up to 64 or even 80.5 hours if 11 consecutive hours of break time between work days are provided. The government plans to submit its draft bill to National Assembly around this June to July, while the center-right Democratic Party, the majority of parliament as the former ruling party, has not agreed on this government’s plan.

On top of that, this government has been inflicting several attacks on workers' unions. The government is forcing unions to open their fiscal books publicly, especially to the capitalist government and audit specialists. The government's demand is based on a vague clause in the labor law about the supervisory right of government on unions in a very crucial situation, which hadn't been used for a long time by previous governments. There are two different types of unions in South Korea. The KCTU, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, was built in 1995 through the national unity of democratic unions, which mainly had been constructed based on each company as a result of the 1987 Great Struggle, which was a militant strike wave like an eruption of a volcano composed of more than 3,000 illegal strikes with 1.2 million participants within three months. Despite its bureaucratization, the KCTU still has some basic features as a democratic union. Fiscal transparency is one of them. The fiscal situation of the KCTU and its affiliated unions have been transparently shared with their members. But it is not the case for the FKTU, the Federation of Korean Trade Unions, which has been made up of totally bureaucratized unions filled with bureaucratic corruption since 1946. Given this situation, this government is utilizing the corruption of the FKTU to attack all unions, mainly targeting the KCTU. Against the intention of the government to undermine the fiscal independence of unions, the KCTU and its affiliated unions are rejecting the demand to submit their fiscal books to the authority.

Also, this government is eagerly trying to demonize the KCWU, the Korean Construction Workers’ Union, and repress it. The KCWU is an affiliate of the KCTU and organizes around 80,000 workers in the construction sector, usually working under extremely unstable and dangerous working conditions. The KCWU has been using a tactic to demand construction companies to hire union members at a certain portion and has managed to change construction sites safer through its more than 20 years of struggles. However, this government defines KCWU’s demands as illegal threats and regards its struggles as the violence of gangster organizations. Especially the president, Yoon, called the KCWU ‘gangsters in the construction sector’ and ordered his government to eradicate the union from the construction sector on February 21. Against that, the KCWU held a national rally in Seoul with the KCTU, with more than 40,000 participants, on February 28. The reason this government’s attack focuses on KCWU first seems to have two factors. First seems a retaliation against KCWU, which most eagerly tried to organize a solidarity strike during the truck drivers’ strike in December. The second one looks like a preemptive measure to cope with a foreseeable situation where many construction companies go bankrupt due to the ongoing rapid downfall of housing prices with interest rate hikes, to make the workers burden the capitalist crisis without their union.

A national rally in Seoul held by KCWU with the KCTU, with more than 40,000 participants, on February 28. (taken by Hankyoreh)

Another attack of this government is to repress the KCTU and its affiliated unions using the notorious National Security Law. On January 18, the National Intelligence Service and police forcibly searched the offices of the KCTU and its affiliated union KHMU, the Korean Health and Medical Workers’ Union, based on a search and confiscation warrant for the alleged breach of the National Security Law of some union cadres. And on February 23, they searched the offices of the Gyeong-Nam chapter and Daewoo shipbuilding subcontracted workers’ branch of the KMWU, the Korean Metal Workers’ Union, which is affiliated to KCTU, likewise using the NSL. Forcible searches of the KCTU and its affiliates are the first after 2015. But forcible searches using NSL by NIS are the first after the 1996-97 powerful general strike against the labor reform and the law amendment to reinforce the former NIS.

Backgrounds of the government’s attacks

This president managed to be elected mainly thanks to the former government's failure. The former government was inaugurated in 2017 with big expectations and hopes of the ordinary people after the huge protests against the preceding president and impeachment of her. The former government tried to make itself up as something progressive, but it clearly served the interests of the capitalist class. A significant increase in the minimum wage had been one of the main promises in the presidential election of the former president, but the total increase in the minimum wage during the former government was smaller than the previous more right-wing governments. Furthermore, the former government reformed the law on the minimum wage to make almost all benefits added in the calculation of minimum wage, reducing many workers' real wages. The former government tried to be a mediator between the US and North Korea but did nothing except for just meeting both sides without any attempt to escape from the grip of the US, provoking North Korea's furious and aggressive responses. As soaring housing prices made ordinary people feel massive deprivation, the former government announced dozens of measures against realty speculation but always failed to confine housing prices because the measures were too trivial. The failure to stabilize housing prices was a decisive trigger to the collapse of the strong support for the former government.

In other aspects, this president managed to be elected due to inciting and appealing anti-North Korean and anti-Chinese sentiments and the backlash against the feminist movement. He was elected with the smallest margin in the history of Korean presidential elections, and his party accounts for only a third of the National Assembly. To overcome such vulnerabilities, as a former prosecutor general, he has been utilizing direct or indirect threats based on prosecutors’ punishment power against political rivals. Also, he has been trying to mobilize strong support from right-wing forces. For that, his government has been strengthening the military alliance between US imperialism and South Korea. And it announced a measure to exonerate Japanese war-crime companies from a historical responsibility for forced labor during Japanese imperial domination of the Korean Penninsula on March 6, which was immediately praised not only by Japan but also by the US and even the EU as a good step for building solid relationships between allies. A series of blatant attacks on workers’ rights and unions are also for mobilizing strong support from right-wing forces and especially the capitalist class, who need more intensification of exploitation, given that Korean and global capitalism is heading into a deepening crisis.

Building a powerful general strike is urgent!

The right-wing government's attacks have angered many workers. The KCTU already passed a resolution for a two-week general strike in early July at its national representative assembly on February 7. But, given the government continues to accelerate its attacks, July would be too late for the workers to counterattack. The KCTU should build a strong general strike as soon as possible with urgent demands that include stopping the reactionary labor reform, crushing the repression against the unions, reducing the working hours to 30 hours a week (and redistributing all jobs to all workers, including the unemployed and underemployed), abolishing the National Security Law, rightful reparations from Japanese war-crime companies for forced labor during the colonial occupation, and nationalizing energy companies for energy price control and climate justice. For this, militant workers and revolutionary activists should organize active campaigns from below to call for building a strong general strike as soon as possible. Given the bureaucratized leaders of the KCTU are reluctant to head-on confrontations against the government, only can mobilizing the anger of ordinary workers and turning it into a strong desire toward a counterattack be the way to realize a powerful general strike by overcoming the barrier of bureaucrats.

Overcoming narrow trade unionism is very important for building a strong general strike. In recent months, the president's approval rating has shown a tendency to go up every time this government steps up its attacks on the unions. That's not only because right-wing forces are mobilized but also because a not-so-small portion of ordinary workers are swayed by the government's propaganda because of their bad feelings about the unions. As of 2021, the unionization rate of workers in South Korea was 14.2%, and the figure was 46.3% in workplaces with 300 or more workers, but it was only 0.2% in workplaces with less than 30 workers, where about 60% of the total workforce is employed. However, for the past 20 years, most unions’ approach to this situation has been narrow trade unionism, in which unions focus only on the interests of their own members, seriously widening the gap in wages, working conditions, and job securities between regular workers in big companies and other workers. This wide gap allows the government's anti-union campaign to reach ordinary workers. Therefore, overcoming narrow trade unionism and restoring class-struggle unionism, which regards workers' unions as weapons of the working class in its class struggle against the capitalist class and was a strong tendency in the democratic unions for ten years after 1987, is crucial to the success of the workers' counterattack. Therefore, in order to make this general strike a decisive turning point for this, the demands for the vulnerable workers should be raised first, such as raising the minimum wage by 30%, recognizing the rights of subcontracted workers to negotiate with and strike against the main company, recognizing the rights of so-called self-employed workers and platform workers to negotiate with and strike against the real employer, and extending the prohibition of reparation for damages due to strike from legal strikes to all strikes. Making such demands become all unions' demands is also the task for militant workers and revolutionary activists to realize through assertive activities from below.

Workers in South Korea have a historical tradition of strengthening their movement by organizing strong counterattacks against governments' harsh repressions. This was the way to build and defend the regional and national unity of democratic unions after the 1987 Great Struggle. This can also be the case at this moment. In particular, organizing a strong counterattack this year can be very helpful in reviving the workers' movement, which has been weakened in recent years by the illusion of the nature of the former government and the restrictions of COVID-19. In other respects, given that most of the older generation of the 1987 Great Struggle has been retiring, this struggle can be a good opportunity for the largely organized new union members since 2016, who make up about 36% of the KCTU's 1.1 million members, to organize a huge struggle and grow as a new protagonist of the Korean workers' movement. It will be of great significance in preparing the Korean working class for the great struggles and leaps against desperate attacks of the capitalist class in the coming deep capitalist crisis in Korea and worldwide.