hankyoreh

The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU, Minju Nochong) has a new leadership committee, having on April 1 elected Lim Seong-kyu as its new president. One is supposed to send words of congratulations after an election event, but KCTU is not in a position to enjoy such luxuries right now. The task of this leadership committee is first and foremost to finish out the remaining ten month leadership term left open because the predecessors had stepped down to accept responsibility during a sexual assault investigation of one of its leaders. However, the umbrella union also finds itself facing a live-or-die situation.

Internally, it faces a crisis for the thorough lack of faith workers have in the union. Externally, it faces an all out offensive from capital interests and government power as both try to assign workers with the blame for the market’s failures. An organization united based on strong mutual trust and solidarity can overcome even the harshest of these offensives. In this situation, the crisis KCTU faces is, at its roots, an organizational crisis.

In fact, the previous leadership’s scandalous behavior is only the tip of the iceberg in diagnosing the organization’s problems. The senior vice chairman once took bribes. Voting representatives once got into a brawl. There is regular conflict between the organization’s internal factions. The organization has ignored workers who have less power, and the leadership has become something of its own aristocracy. The cancer on the inside grows deep and wide. bureaucratization, the loss of ethical standing, and the general out-of-touch-ness of leaders with genuine places of work have all served to weaken trust and solidarity, turning KCTU into a paper tiger that is unable to adequately respond to even minor attacks.

The new leadership, therefore, needs to remove the cancer, restore the culture of democracy, and establish a renewed ethical resolve. It should also restore the organization’s status as one that is at the center of labor solidarity and unity, by being more considerate and supportive of irregular workers, who already make up close to half of the country’s working people. Capital interests and political power have always encouraged division and conflict among workers. KCTU knows this well enough but has neglected the obvious. It has been disinterested in job sharing, and it has completely ignored unemployment among young people who are having difficulty finding their first jobs. As a result, the number of jobs being converted to irregular employment has ballooned, there is conflict and discord in the labor community, and the worker’s influence in negotiations has experienced a subsequent drop. There is even talk that a “third umbrella union” is replacing the organization.

Big corporations are using the economic crisis as an excuse to commence an all out restructuring program, and the administration of President Lee Myung-bak is trying to create a more flexible labor market by converting more jobs into irregular ones. These are not things that can just be ignored, but if the organization cannot overcome its organizational crisis it will be hard to overcome anything else. Many already worry about a leadership committee that is a marriage of different factions. However, a union of differences can display even stronger unity. We will hope these new leaders demonstrate a new resolve as they pursue unity among laborers.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]