Sky Protest: New Forms of Labour Resistance in Neo-Liberal Korea

ABSTRACT

This article examines the rise of “sky protest,” a new form of labour resistance in Korea, by focusing on three major labour struggles at Hanjin Heavy Industry, Ssangyong Motors, and Hyundai Motors. Through a close examination of these instances of labour contention, this study argues that the rise to this new form of labour unrest is associated with deepening chasms in neo-liberalised Korean society, such as the division between globalising capital and immobile labour, the division between regular and non-regular workers within the labour market, and the division between the represented and the unrepresented by political institutions and collective organisations. This article ultimately argues that these multiple and severe divisions within Korean society pose a serious strain on its democratic governance.

Key Words:

• Labour protest
• neo-liberalism
• sky protest
• inequality
• South Korea

Notes

¹ By January 2015, in addition to 23 deaths of laid-off workers, there were three deaths of spouses of Ssangyong workers that some considered related to the layoffs.

² These attributes of sky protest are also found in other newly practiced protest repertoires such as the one-person protest and the three-steps-one-bow protest (in Korean, irin siwi and sambo ilbe, respectively).

³ In early June, the number of Kim-related Twitter messages per day rose to over 10,000 and it reached its peak at over 60,000 in late June. By October, hashtags (Twitter messages prefixed with the symbol #) of Hanjin or Hopebus were widely exchanged (Kyunghynag Shinmun, August 16, 2011).

⁴ The bankruptcy was suspected to be a deliberate action by Shanghai Motors who were mainly interested in accessing Ssangyong’s manufacturing technology. Instead of making a significant investment or securing marketing networks in China, Shanghai Motors contracted Anjin Accounting to produce accounting information that was used as a basis for filing for bankruptcy. Anjin Accounting produced a questionable accounting report in which Ssangyong’s debt ratio skyrocketed from 168% of the firm’s total assets to 561% within a year in 2008 (Kong 2012, 71–85).

⁵ Between 2009 and 2014, 400 workers chose early retirement, 460 workers chose unpaid leave, and 160 workers were laid off; 22 unionists have died either by suicide or by sudden illness.

⁶ The union was first organised in 2003 and has a membership of 1,800 non-regular workers from the Ulsan factory and the Asan factory. From 2003 to 2012, 32 unionists were imprisoned, 45 unionists were placed on a wanted list, and 320 unionists were dismissed (Kyunghyang shinmun, March 28, 2013).

⁷ According to Wright, associational power refers to power coming from trace unions and political parties and structural power is power accrued from workers’ location in the economic system.

⁸ The beginning is traced back to 1993 when Lee Geon Hee, chairperson of the Samsung Group, announced the “New Management Strategy.”

⁹ The essential aspect of the labour law reforms in 1996 and after was to increase labour market flexibility; in other words, to make hiring and dismissal easy and to allow increased use of “flexible” labour (such as temporary workers, non-regular workers, dispatch workers). This is why labour law reform in 1996 invited the largest nationwide labour strike co-organised by the KCTU and the Federation of Korean Trade Unions. When the KCTU agreed to a similar labour law amendment in 1998, the union leadership was brought down by revolt from its rank-and-file members and this national centre has not returned to the government-led tripartite consultation since.

¹⁰ This article uses Y. Kim’s (2012) definition of non-regular workers, which include terminal labour, part-time labour, on-call labour, dispatch labour, special employment labour, sub-contract labour, and in-house labour.

¹¹ The Non-regular Employees Protection Law went into effect in 2007 and was applied only to firms employing more than 300 workers. Its application was expanded to firms with more than five employees in 2009.