hankyoreh

The Federation of Korean Trade Unions said yesterday that it has decided to endorse Lee Myung-bak of the main opposition Grand National Party, a move that is raising eyebrows since the front-runner is known for his corporate-friendly campaign pledges.

In a poll that was conducted among its members earlier this month, the FKTU, one of the nation’s two umbrella labor organizations, said 41.5 percent of those surveyed were in support of the former Seoul mayor. The poll was conducted via telephone using what is known as an advanced recording system, or ARS. The system uses an automated voice recording to ask questions, and records responses in its system.

Park Young-sam, the organization’s spokesperson, said, “After discussing the specific wording of the agreement with Lee, we will officially announce our endorsement of him.”

In the voting, conducted from December 1 to 7, Chung Dong-young of the United New Democratic Party came in second with 31 percent approval, followed by independent Lee Hoi-chang, who garnered 27.5 percent.

Moon Kuk-hyun of the minor Create Korea Party and Lee In-je of the Democratic Party were excluded from the candidate list for the poll, which required that candidates have approval ratings of more than 10 percent in order to be included.

Kwon Young-ghil of the Democratic Labor Party was excluded from the list because, when the FKTU asked him to submit a document outlining his policies so that he could participate in the process, he refused.

In fact, there have been no candidates other than Lee on the poll’s list since Chung Dong-young and Lee Hoi-chang withdrew their bids to ally with the union. Both candidates withdrew after the FKTU rejected their demand that the survey be delayed until after the prosecution announced the outcome of its investigation of the GNP standard-bearer, an investigation that was related to his alleged involvement in stock price manipulation and other illegalities.

Observers take issue with the way in which the FKTU has chosen the candidate it will support in this election.

Chung I-hwan, professor at Seoul National University of Technology, said, “The FKTU is contradicting itself by clinging to such a perfunctory method of democracy as ARS polling.”

He added, “The labor union should have maintained its own principles and standards in choosing a candidate who could represent its policies... It now faces an outcry as it has chosen to ally itself with an anti-labor candidate.”

The FKTU had tried to promote its policy directives to candidates before the survey took place, but the efforts hit a snag late last month when a scheduled debate was cancelled, after the GNP’s Lee said he would not participate.

Kim Yoo-seon, of the Korea Labor Society Institute, took issue with the survey itself, saying that only 90,000 people out of its 800,000 members cast their ballots.

The FKTU promised to do its utmost to maintain its alliance with Lee, but it is anyone’s guess as to how much Lee will be willing to compromise his stance in the future. Lee has been ambiguous about his position on some controversial labor issues, including irregular workers.

Kim Seong-hee, who is affiliated with a civic group that promotes labor rights, said, “Supporting a business-friendly candidate in order to tackle such issues as irregular employees is self-damaging... Lee has little interest in the problem and the FKTU will have little chance to map out labor-friendly policies through an alliance with Lee.”


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