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NEWS - South Korea: Women Union Le
- Subject: NEWS - South Korea: Women Union Le
- From: RangoonPost@xxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 16:16:00
Subject: NEWS - South Korea: Women Union Leaders Flex Muscle
In a message dated 10/11/99 5:21:53 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Thakin writes:
<< Title: South Korea: Women Union Leaders Flex Muscle
Date: 09-OCT-1999
Author: Prangtip Daorueng
Source: Corporate Watch, 20-09-1999
Style: News story
Reference: http://www.corpwatch.org/trac/corner/worldnews/other/464.html
SEOUL, (IPS) - Hired when convenient and then demoted or thrown out of
work in hard times, South Korea's women workers have had enough of being
shunted aside in this newly industrialised economy.
Thus, a group of women formed the country's first women's union in
August -- and have their hands full since female employees are among the
hardest hit by South Korea's economic woes.
''Although Korean economic growth had increased during the past decade,
the working conditions of women had been bad. It is now getting worse as
the country is facing financial crisis,'' said Choi Sang Rim, president
of the newly-founded Korean Women Trade Union (WTU).
''Women workers, who make 40 percent of the overall Korean labourers,
need to have a union of our own so that we can have a say in society,''
she explained, saying the problems women workers face must be among the
priorities of the labour movement.
Women workers, the first to be laid off when the Asian crisis struck in
late 1997, find they are still lagging behind despite signs of recovery
in South Korea, whose GDP growth is expected to reach 8 percent in 1999
from last year's 5.8 percent contraction.
Now that the worst of the crisis has passed, majority of women workers
are paid only about 57 percent of men's salary, Choi explains. Many
women employees have lost their permanent jobs.
One study shows that 70 percent of the overall women workers in South
Korea hold temporary jobs in small work places with less five employees.
But while the number of temporary workers have rapidly increased, there
is no mechanism to voice women employees' demand or push their
interests. Choi says the WTU will fill the gap.
''A women's trade union is needed to pull together women workers from
different working conditions and identify their problems to the
society,'' she said.
She says the Women's Trade Union aims to be a forum for all women
workers, including who have lost their jobs and with that, their
involvement in union activities. This is significant since Korean law
bars the unemployed from joining a union.
The WTU also groups not just full-time workers, but temporary ones as
well.
''As Korean labour unions are mostly company-based, when women lose
their jobs or work in a temporary job it means they have to leave their
union activities. This has weakened women workers' movement for years,''
Choi pointed out. ''Our trade union will help fill this gap because any
women workers can join in.''
Choi says that research and public hearings involving unorganised women
prior to the union's establishment ''helped us to have a clear picture
of what we want to do''.
For instance, it helped bring out concerns by women workers that
companies and employers should look into issues like child care to
improve security and productivity.
''While an issue like child care centres, which should be an issue for
both women and men workers, is always left behind in labour
negotiations, this research shows that there is a strong demand for it.
Otherwise workers cannot make a living properly,'' she added.
The Asian crisis is only the latest in changing labour trends -- not all
encouraging -- that have affected South Korean women workers in recent
decades.
The shift of industries in South Korea from unskilled ones such as
textile or shoe industries in the sixties and seventies, to heavy
industries such as car manufacturing in the eighties and nineties, has
driven thousands of unskilled women workers out of their jobs.
''In the early stage of Korea's industrialisation, which started with
low-skilled industries, thousands of unskilled young and single women
workers were pulled out from countryside to work in factories,'' said
Rhie Chol Soon, chairperson of Korean Women Workers Association United,
a Seoul-based NGO.
''But after two decades of hard work, a huge number of women workers
lost their jobs because industries changed and many foreign and Korean
investors moved their base to other cheaper labour countries in
South-east Asia,'' she pointed out.
The evidence of this change is clear in Pusan, Korean's biggest port
city in the south.
For instance, a huge condominium site located along the highway was once
a foreign-invested shoe factory with more than 20,000 workers, mostly
women. The factory has since moved to Indonesia, where cheaper labour
can be found.
''About 80 percent of workers in nearly 1,000 shoe factories in Pusan
are women,'' said Som Jung Eem, vice president of the Pusan women worker
training centre. ''In the mid-1990s, many of them lost their jobs
because of factory moves. The crisis has made it even worse because more
were dismissed.''
Women working in other industries also bore the brunt of these
market-driven changes. According to the Korean Confederation of Trade
Unions (KCTU), one of two largest unions in South Korea, women are the
first group of workers laid off after any crisis.
But the effects of the 1997 slowdown were made more painful by the
Parliament's passage of the so-called Dispatch Law, which allowed firms
to get rid of workers legally after the crisis.
Again, women's jobs were the first to be shed using the law, whose
passage the government said would make South Korea more competitive and
would remove a long-time complaint of foreign investors who said job
security laws went against efficiency.
''While several small-sized companies went bankrupt, the medium- sized
companies with no unions just dismissed workers -- and the first group
to be dismissed is always women,'' said Lee Hye Soon, deputy director of
KCTU's women workers' unit.
''Even in big companies that have unions, women are always suggested to
take voluntary retirement as a part of companies' financial
restructuring after the crisis,'' she observed.
She says the most vulnerable women workers are those who have been
working for several years and have higher salaries than the others.
''Then companies will hire younger and cheaper workers,'' Lee added.
Activists hope the Korean Women Trade Union will be able to lobby more
effectively for women workers.
South Korea's labour movement is often perceived as strong, a view fired
by images of organised and militant labourers marching and protesting in
unison.
But though very powerful in the past, the movement has actually been
weakening during the past decade. In 1987, total membership in South
Korean trade unions was 1.93 million. It fell to 1.61 million in 1995
and 1.59 in late 1996.
Women's role has also declined in the union movement from the 1960s and
1970s. Choi Sang Rim estimates that women's participation in trade
unions is only at 20 percent.
She says WTU will take up the cudgels for women in part-time or
temporary work, or those without jobs. Said Choi: ''This group of
workers are the biggest group of women workers and they are in the worst
situation.'' >>