FIGHTING FOR BASIC UNION RIGHTS: DAEWOO WORKERS TAKE ON GENERAL MOTORS
By Jeff Bigelow
The General Motors Corp. is preparing to take over the Daewoo auto company in South Korea and eliminate the jobs of thousands of workers there. This move has direct repercussions on the auto industry in the U.S. So Daewoo workers are appealing directly to workers here for solidarity in their struggle.
On June 2, 10,000 workers marched through the capital of South Korea protesting corporate "restructuring"--the code word for massive layoffs that force still-employed workers to do two and three jobs, often for less pay.
Demands included a 40-hour, five-day workweek, maternity rights and an end to violent police repression. A detachment of 1,000 workers also demonstrated at General Motor's Korean offices to protest GM's proposed takeover of Daewoo auto.
These simple and just demands were met with police terror. After the demonstration a leader of the KCTU--the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions--was notified that police were planning to arrest him just for organizing the protest. Police had beaten him and dozens of others unionists last June during a hotel workers' strike.
Police violence against Korean unionists is worsening. On May 28, police beat workers holding a sit-in at a nylon plant to protest layoffs. Some 130 workers were injured, many seriously.
In April, as 400 Daewoo autoworkers marched to their own union hall--with a court order in hand saying that they had a right to do so--police attacked. Dozens of workers were very seriously wounded.
The incident, caught on videotape, ignited widespread anger. The president of South Korea was forced to apologize.
LAYOFFS IN KOREA MADE IN U.S.A.
The March 15 Wall Street Journal reported that Arthur Anderson--a huge U.S. consulting firm--designed a plan for Daewoo last December that called for massive layoffs, plant closings and faster production.
It was designed to make Daewoo a more lucrative acquisition for GM. Many of the layoffs would take place before the GM takeover.
GM was, of course, all for Arthur Anderson's plan.
GM is the world's largest car company. It owns Buick, Chevy, Cadillac, Olds, Opel, Saab, Saturn, 20 percent of Fiat, 20 percent of Subaru, 49 percent of Isuzu, 20 percent of Suzuki and dozens of other companies. It has operations in over 50 countries.
Financial institutions own over half of GM. And the top 10 banks--including Morgan, State Street, Mellon, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter--own over 26 percent. These financial behemoths have been the architects of massive cutbacks and layoffs in the U.S. as well.
THE ROLE OF REPRESSION
Koreans work six days a week. They average 50 hours and make $4.33 an hour. With overtime and special bonuses, they get about $307 a week, according to official South Korean Labor Ministry figures.
Many workers earn far less while being forced to continually produce more. Over half of all Korean workers are now "temporary" workers with less rights and pay.
Bad enough? No, the bosses want to push the workers back even further. In 1996 and 1997 they demanded "reforms" of the labor laws. These included no restrictions on layoffs and up to 56 hours work without overtime pay. They made it illegal for communities to support strikes; banned unofficial strikes, picketing to stop scabs and teachers' unions; and allowed more scab labor.
The unions fought these measures with massive demonstrations.
The government then called in legislators to pass these laws in secret at 6 a.m. on a holiday. The process reportedly took seven minutes.
The workers protested with a series of massive strikes.
Workers have also resisted International Monetary Fund pressure to privatize and sell off South Korea businesses and banks at fire sale prices to big transnational corporations--largely U.S. corporations.
Workers in energy corporations, telephone companies, banks, railroads and subways have valiantly resisted. They know it is not just the police who back up these new owners, but the U.S. military that occupies South Korea.
Uprisings by workers and students in 1979 and 1980 were crushed by hundreds of thousands of troops, which the Pentagon oversees. In 1980, thousands of protesters were killed.
And ultimately nothing happens militarily in South Korea without Pentagon approval.
A representative of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce spoke in Seoul on May 25. He said "first and foremost" action must be taken to end the "belligerent labor unrest" and that labor is asking for too much.
He also said that the Korean government needed to make it easier for U.S. companies to take home more profits more easily. If not, he added, "There are other markets that are more attractive."
He was echoing a 1998 statement by the president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea, Michael Brown, who said that the U.S. was very interested in the passage of the repressive labor "reforms."
DAEWOO WORKERS REMEMBER GM BOSSES
GM owned Daewoo from 1978 to 1992.
During that period the number of employees at GM's Baltimore plant dropped from 7,000 to 4,000. Injuries from speed-ups increased and forced a 26-day strike there in 1991.
At the end, GM agreed to hire more workers in the Baltimore plant. While GM was demanding concessions from workers in the U.S.--threatening to ship jobs overseas--it was exploiting Korean Daewoo workers.
In Korea in 1991, auto plant employees worked an average of 73 hours a week. On average six workers were killed and 443 injured each day.
In Korea, all union organizing was illegal at the time. Despite that, in 1985, 2,000 Daewoo workers went on strike and sat-in at one of the plants against the unsafe conditions.
In response, GM called on the police; 8,000 police surrounded the plant. The workers threatened to burn the computer center if they were attacked. Many ended up in prison.
At that time one-quarter of all political prisoners in South Korea were in jail for union activity--violating repressive labor laws.
GM and Daewoo went their separate ways in 1992. Daewoo owners quickly focused on world expansion. In less than 10 years they became a competitor to GM in a number of markets.
By 1997 Daewoo sold more cars in Europe than GM's Saab. They became real competitors in the areas of the world with the highest growth rates in car sales.
So GM moved to crush the competition. GM is after Daewoo and the control or destruction of its international network-- including factories in nine other countries. Labor's strong stand in South Korea is the only thing that has stopped the GM takeover.
Now is the time for shoulder-to-shoulder solidarity--from autoworkers in the U.S. fighting layoffs and speedups to the GM workers battling their bosses in Brazil and Argentina.
An injury to one is an injury to all. Support the Daewoo workers.
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