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July 13 (Photo by Ryu Woo-jong)

By Nam Jong-young　

A labor union made up of four Samsung Everland employees filed an establishment notice Wednesday, becoming the Samsung Group’s first union led by workplace employees.

The union elected Park Won-woo as chairman and Cho Jang-hee as vice chairman, and appointed Kim Sung-hwan as a full-time Direction Committee member. Kim is president of the Samsung Group Union, an outsider union that has supported the Samsung union’s establishment from the periphery.

“We prepared for this after agreeing three years ago to form a democratic union,” said Chairman Park. “The union will work to protect the rights and interests of its members and defend democratic unions.”

While there are currently nine unions at Samsung Group affiliates, all are either “pro-company” unions or inactive “ghost unions.” These unions effectively prevented the establishment of democratic unions at the company under the old single union system. Because of this, the implementation this month of a system allowing multiple trade unions for single companies posed a major threat to the group and its myth of being a “group without unions.” The new system enables employees to form a new union even if a ghost union already exists.

But the labor community is predicting that the company will try to use the same heavy pressure tactics as before to trigger a union collapse.

Direction Committee member Kim Sung-hwan said, “Samsung management also applied pressure, both tangible and intangible, on the vice president during this latest union establishment process.”

The Samsung Group Union is a so-called “outsider union” that has not been granted permission for its establishment.

In past years, the group took advantage of provisions prohibiting multiple trade unions to block the formation of member-led “democratic unions.” At the time of 1987’s Great Labor Struggle, seven hundred employees of Samsung Shipbuilding (today’s Samsung Heavy Industries) filed a union establishment notice that was rejected due to the existence of another union created by just seven people with company support. Similar means were used to block the establishment of a Samsung S1 Union in May 2000 and a Samsung Plaza Union in September 2003.

Controversy has also raged over the use of incentives, intimidation tactics, and even abduction against employees who attempted to establish unions. The Samsung Group Union claimed that workers with Samsung SDI in 2000, Samsung Capital in 2001, and Samsung Electronics and Samsung SDI again in 2004 were tailed, confined, and kidnapped by Samsung Group employees under the pretense of “interviews” after attempting to set up unions, and that in some cases the employees were subjected to brutality. Last year, Samsung Electronics employee Park Jong-tae was fired after posting a message on the company bulletin board stating the need for a labor union.

There is no way of knowing yet whether the newly launched union will be incapacitated by such a process, or whether Samsung will show a new approach to labor relations for the multiple trade union era. The first test will be how Samsung Everland responds to the union’s bargaining request.

Prior to the union’s launch, a “pro-company” union was established at Samsung Everland in late June, with a membership of four. The labor world interpreted this as a deliberate attempt to check the actions of future multiple unions through stipulations on bargaining channel consolidation. In cases where multiple unions are present, negotiations with the company must be conducted through a joint bargaining team.

Attention is turning to whether the union will be capable of leading to the establishment of democratic unions at other Samsung affiliates. The Korean Confederation of Trade Union (KCTU) and others have reportedly been engaged in a considerable amount of organizational work behind the scenes.

One KCTU official said, “With the arrival of the multiple trade union era, we have definitely met with circumstances favorable to union establishment, but our goal is to establish them carefully and ensure their substance with a larger number of members.”

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