BY IGGY KIM
SEOUL — Hundreds of riot police have attacked 400 workers laid off by the troubled Korean car manufacturer Daewoo, injuring 70, in an attempt to prevent the workers gaining entry to their own union office. But their assault may have an unintended long-term victim: the country's president, Kim Dae-jung.
Since the workers' bitter battle for reinstatement erupted in February, the police and company management have repeatedly sought to prevent workers' access to the union office, which is located inside Daewoo's Bu-pyung factory premises.
The Inchon District Court handed down a ruling on April 6 stating "the company must not interfere with union members and those attached to the Korean Metalworkers' Federation (KMWF) or Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) entering and leaving the union office".
In spite of this, when 300 workers and a lawyer from the KMWF went to the union office on April 9, a group of cops in full riot gear forcibly blocked their entry. After repeated demands to be allowed access, the cops consulted company management before letting 15 workers in.
The next day, lawyer Park Hoon and a court bailiff attempted to post the court ruling at each of the four main factory gates but were prevented by company thugs.
In response, 400 workers and Park again sought to enter the union office. Before they had even got within 100 metres, hundreds of riot cops had amassed. Infuriated, the workers repeatedly attempted to push through. Union leaders brandished the court ruling and demanded the fulfillment of their legal rights. They were met by a wall of silence, periodically broken by a monotonous "we have our orders".
Encircled by riot cops, workers took off their shirts and laid on the road, loudly demanding their right to enter the union office be respected. As soon as they had laid down, police set upon them, pounding them with batons and shields and trampling on them.
Several workers suffered broken ribs, one had his lung punctured, another his sight impaired. Noses and limbs were smashed, backs and heads badly injured. Thirty workers are still in hospital and many of them are not due out for another month.
Miscalculation
The April 10 assault has provoked national uproar. Even normally docile TV stations featured it prominently, airing video footage taken by labour activists.
Three different lawyers' associations sent a protest delegation to the Inchon police department on April 11, particularly concerned about the assault on Park Hoon.
When the heads of all the union federations made a protest visit to the Inchon police chief on April 12, he quickly retreated, issuing a formal apology, sacking the head of the Bu-pyung precinct, promising to pay all the hospital costs, and guaranteeing freedom of access to the Daewoo union office.
There has since been a visible reduction in the police presence around the Bu-pyung factory.
But the workers are understandably far from satisfied. On April 14, more than 7,000 angry workers and students mobilised outside Bu-pyung train station in a show of defiance. Punctuated by powerful chants and fiery speeches, the atmosphere was electric as protesters loudly demanded the resignation of the Inchon police chief and South Korean president Kim Dae-jung.
Contingents of workers from other factories and other struggles were out in force, and bystanders gaped in horror at the video footage of the April 10 attack, projected onto a large screen overhead. Not a single police baton was to be seen anywhere.
Despite workers' red-hot anger, the marchers showed impeccable discipline and cohesion, only broken by a spate of organised egg-throwing at the local police station. Even when an undercover cop was discovered taking photos of individual activists at the union office, the workers simply confiscated the film and escorted him out onto the street.
The mass marched through the streets of the district, finishing at the Sangok Church where union leaders, who have been hunted by the police since February 19, are being given sanctuary. There the "fugitive" union leaders were able to set foot outside the church grounds for the first time in weeks, under the protection of the mass of workers and students.
Union secretary Kim Il-sup was visibly moved as he gave a stirring speech denouncing the Kim Dae-jung regime. He was followed by a fiery young militant, Kim Chang-gon, the union's struggle planning secretary, who denounced General Motors' move to take over Daewoo Motors, which will result in the closure of the Bu-pyung factory, and set fire to the giant US auto maker's flag.
The very next working day, the Inchon police chief received orders to transfer out.
The conservative opposition Grand National Party also began its own opportunist offensive in parliament, threatening to organise a mass rally in early May. The next morning, on April 17, Kim Dae-jung issued a statement expressing "regret" and "sympathy that cannot be expressed in words".
Growing class conflict
Was the April 10 thuggery a case of rogue behaviour by lower ranking cops or a badly timed test of strength?
Most likely, they were the actions of a regime increasingly pressured by all sides, which is in charge of an economy in deep crisis and which has little room to manoeuvre.
The miscalculated assault has merely added to this pressure. The April 14 response to the attack was a clear display of the vigour and health of a mass workers' movement that is alive, well and kicking — and capable of leading the broad people's movement.
Everywhere you turn in this country there are struggles against the neo-liberal restructuring drive. While the Daewoo struggle may be the most high profile, workers are also in the midst of bitter battles at Readymix Concrete, Korea Telecom, at three separate insurance companies and in the health sector.
Even casual workers, whose numbers in 1999 hit 50% of the total work force, are fighting back, demanding permanency. Students are campaigning against rising tuition fees and farmers are organising against the opening of the country's agricultural markets.
For the regime this movement is like the hydra, whose heads kept growing back. Just when one struggle has been repressed, up rises another, then another. The moment of numb shock which followed the 1997-8 financial crisis has passed.
The alternatives facing South Korea's working people are now sharply revealed. In a fully industrialised country with neither a welfare system to speak of nor any remnants of pre-capitalist society in which to find some refuge, South Korean workers have been backed up against an unscalable wall. They have no alternative but to fight.
'Kim Dae-jung resign!'
This gathering momentum is converging on the regime, as the common thread running through all the anti-worker attacks is the political policy of neo-liberal restructuring. As such, at rallies and protests since the Daewoo repression, the call has become louder each time: "Kim Dae-jung resign!"
This is astonishing when you consider that just over three years ago, the majority of workers had invested their hopes in Kim's election.
Now, with his growing unpopularity, the ruling class faces a problem. Since the downfall of military rule in 1987, there have only been two candidates for "capitalist politics with a human face": Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung.
The first was never that influential among the workers and lost whatever he had when his regime became the target of the general strike of winter 1996-7. Now the second, who has represented the hopes of ordinary people for decades, is now generally considered as being, at best, removed from their concerns.
With less than 15 years' experience of liberal democracy, there hasn't been time to nurture another.
The call for Kim Dae-jung's resignation is therefore a big step in the development of a distinctly working-class political alternative.
As the workers' movement has developed over the last three years, so too has its political expressions. The Democratic Labour Party, the Power of the Working Class and the Korea Youth Progress Party were all formed within a year of each other, for example.
Kim Dae-jung's political crisis will likely accelerate this development of an independent working-class political voice, although how fast and how far isn't yet clear, and probably won't be before the KCTU's interim delegates' conference later this year, which will discuss the confederation's political policy.
Complicating the picture, will be two variables: the role of the increasingly vocal civic movement and the part played by the still influential pro-North Korean nationalist movement.
The civic movement encompasses a plethora of organisations from human rights lobbying groups to the YMCA through to shareholder activism groups. On February 27, 211 of these groups formed an umbrella organisation, the Civil Society Solidarity Conference; they are also considering entering the electoral fray by launching their own political party.
Their platform is a combination of liberal democratic social reform and neo-liberal economic measures, and their overall strategic line is an alliance with the liberal capitalists, including with Kim Dae-jung. They already exert an influence over the popular movement and have begun to engage with the growth of reformist labour politics, particularly within the Democratic Labour Party.
The pro-Pyongyang nationalist current also has a powerful hold over sections of the workers' and students' movements. This current has fallen in with Kim Dae-jung's "sunshine policy" towards North Korea, in the hope that it may lead to reunification. Thus, they oppose the call for his resignation on the grounds that it will weaken the struggle against US imperialism, which is cool towards Kim's policy.
As South Korea prepares for presidential and parliamentary elections next year, the stage is set for major battles, not just industrially but politically, as the country's workers strive to find a political voice of their own.
[Visit the PWC web site at <http://www.pwc.org.kr>. Donations can be sent to the Daewoo workers at: Chohing Bank, account number 938-04-179123.]