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SESSION TWO: FEATURES OF
GLOBALISATION
When: 19:00-22:00, 4 March 1999
- Where: conference room in KLSI
1. We read foreign countries’ reports and discussed
responses to the questions.
- The means to weaken or destroy unions
(Question from
Philippine): new management strategy, reducing unions’ role in workplace, increase of
contract/part-time/casual workers, strengthening middle-level managers’ control
against workers, ideological attack such as "competitiveness or profit is more
important than workers or human being in global economy", privatizing measures
against unions in public sector.
- The basic organizing strategies, tactics, techniques
(Questions
from Philippine): activation of rank & file members’ discussion in workplace,
periodic education for key unionists, obtaining social and moral leadership of working
class.
- Privatization
(Question from Australia): The Korean
government is propelling the privatization of Korea Telecom, Korea Electronic
Power, POSCO(which is the largest steel makers in Korea), Korea Heavy
Industry(which is a shipbuilding company) and state-owned universities, etc. The Kim
Dae-jung government is inclined to prefer privatization policies. Unions have demanded
the stop of unilateral privatization and negotiation with them to the government.
- Causes of stress for workers
(Question from Australia):
unstable employment, lay-off, IMF
- Forced retirement, forced leaves, retrenchment
(Question
from Philippine): employers force workers to accept so-called "voluntary
retirement". Also, they do workers to "enjoy" leaves in the name of
managerial difficulties such as business suspension. Retrenchment is the most important
issue for unions to cope with.
- Union membership
(Question from Australia): union density
is less than 11%. Workers than 1.5 million are unionized, while we have 13 million
workers(45 million population). Korea Confederation of Trade Unions has about
500,000 members and Federation of Korean Trade Unions has about 1 million members.
2. And then we read the study
material and discussed "What is the globalization".
- We have heard about "globalization"(Segyehwa)
for the first time during the period of Kim Young-sam government(1993-1997). Kim
Young-sam government had tried to propel the neo-liberal policies such as flexibility
of labor market, privatization, ‘lean’ state in the name of Segyehwa.
- We can say that although the new government, Kim Dae-jung
government was launched, the fundamental ideas and specific policies relate to economy and
labor of new government are based on those of the former government.
- From the late 1997 when Korea received the IMF
bail-out, we have experienced the substance of globalization.
- Now, the economic influence of IMF is superior to
that of Korean government. As a result of ‘lean’ state or privatization, the
economic dominance of Chaebol(Korean conglomerates) surpass the government.
- Foreign investment has been increasing in all kind of
industries. For example, Volvo took over Samsung Heavy Equipment in the
early 1998. Hongkong & Sanghai Bank is going to take over Seoul Bank. In
stock market, the amount of shares owned by the foreign investors has been rapidly
increasing. In Next year, private service sector such as hospital, university, printing,
lawyer, etc will be open to foreign investors.
- Of course, many Korean companies as well as MNCs such
as Daewoo, Samsung, Hyundai, LG and SK, which are Big
5, have advanced overseas. For example, Daewoo is employing 120,000 workers in
overseas countries such as India, Poland, Rumania, Vietnam, Russia, China, etc.
- On the contrary, we can watch "the social
inclusive" measures of the state. For example, unemployment fund will be expanded to
all kind of workplaces. And the government will start the National Pension System in the
coming April and has a plan to merge 4 kind of social insurance such as medical insurance,
industrial injury insurance, etc. Ironically, while it is trying to reduce the public
sector by privatization, the government has been employing hundreds of thousand of
so-called "workers for public work" who clean streets or take care of trees in
forest.
3. Finally, we discussed whether
"national economy" is important even in the age of globalization.
Also, we argued
whether the state is decisive force for the defense of national economy. But, we could not
reach the conclusion, because of lack of time. We agreed to discuss this issue in the
coming sessions.
4. Concerning
Session 3
When: 19:00 – 21:00 16th March 1999
Where: Conference room in KLSI
5. Additional
participant
New participant joined our group. The introduction of
new guy is as follows.
I am a printing worker and union
officer of Seoul printing workers’ union. In 1998, I have participated in KLSI’s
education program. My main concern is about the long-term strategy and ideological
alternative of working class.
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