hankyoreh

Eun Su-mi’s passion comes across loud and clear when she discusses issues related to labor. Eun, 48, is a former Korea Labor Institute researcher and the Democratic United Party’s third proportional representation candidate for April‘s general election. Eun is an expert on labor issues and was a member of the illegal activists group South Korean Socialist Coalition of Workers (SKSCW) in the early 1990s. She was imprisoned in the 1990s and is still committed to labor activism. Eun holds a doctorate in labor studies and has consistently declined to be interviewed by the press over the years, but sat down with the Hankyoreh on Wednesday afternoon at the National Assembly’s Service Hall.

Hankyoreh: As a progressive scholar, did you have any misgivings about the Democratic United Party (DUP)?

Eun: None at all. If they agree on the welfare state issue, are interested in creating justice and respect for labor, and are willing to act on those convictions, then they aren’t much different from myself. In the past, during discussions with the DUP on measures to help temporary workers, I asked them to regularize all of their public sector temporary positions, even if it was just for local governments headed by party members, and they agreed to it. I thought, I can work with these people.

I was grateful to come out of prison alive, and I felt like my life was a bonus. I thought that if there were people who need me to resolve labor issues, and if I could be source of strength to them, then I should accept.

H: What do you see as the true nature of the temporary worker issue?

E: They always say that the root of the temporary worker issue is discrimination. But the issue here in South Korea is not just about discrimination. It’s a kind of outcry about the unsustainability of society. If the zeitgeist in the 1980s was about moving past dictatorship and establishing democracy, then in the 2000s it’s about moving past temporary work and establishing a welfare state.

H: What specific issues are in need of resolution?

E: First of all, we need to create the legal groundwork for large corporations to engage in law-abiding management practices. We need to make companies recognize and abide by Supreme Court rulings. If we can resolve the subcontracting problem at Hyundai Motors, that’s 30% to 40% of the temporary employment issue right there. We also need to establish basic labor standards, such as raising the minimum wage and eliminating wage non-payment for part-time workers at places like gas stations and coffee shops. This doesn’t even require improving the laws---it just takes determination on the part of the government to enforce them. Third, we need to give the three basic constitutionally guaranteed labor rights to people who are ostensibly self-employed but in reality are laborers, such as ready-mix concrete workers and tutors. We can cut down on a lot of unnecessary conflict if the capacity is created for this kind of labor and management self-regulation.

H: Why is labor important right now?

E: The condition of humanity is such that we have had to work to survive from the very moment we arrived on this planet. Labor came first, not capital. And apart from that, labor is essential to create the kind of welfare state that so many people hope for. The things that are being discussed at the moment, like halving tuition and providing free school, require tax money from people doing fair labor. But 40.3% of us [fall below the exemption point and] don’t pay taxes, including temporary workers. Under those conditions, we can’t provide welfare services. A lot of people need it, but welfare is not possible if there aren’t enough people capable of paying taxes. Welfare can’t just be about raising taxes on the rich. It’s only possible if there are fair labor practices and decent jobs. So labor justice is urgently needed for a just society.

During her time in the SKSCW, which aspired to a socialist revolution, Eun served as policy office director and central committee member, working with Tae-ung Baik, at the time a member of SKSCW and now a professor at the University of Hawaii Richardson School of Law and the poet Park No-hae. After her 1992 arrest, she underwent surgery in prison to remove 50 cm of her small and large intestines as a result of torture by the Korea Central Intelligence Agency, and she was left unable to speak for a period after suffering tuberculosis that spread to her larynx. Following her 1997 release, she returned to her alma mater of Seoul National University to study in its sociology department. She earned a doctorate in 2005 for a dissertation on “Forms of Political Organization in the South Korean Labor Movement.” That year, she went to work as a researcher at the Korean Labor Institute.

H: How do you view your past work with the SKSCW?

E: The 1980s and early 1990s were such a grim time that people in their twenties were even taking their own lives out of their burning hunger for democracy. When I look back on it now, I think I spread my wings to a degree that might have been excessive. The more people are oppressed, the stronger their resistance. The more passionate they are, the greater their dreams. But personally, I don‘t dream anymore about a utopia, whatever you want to call it. That is partly because I just don’t have the mettle for it, but part of it is because it feels like leaping over some kind of cliff just to get the wages of cleaning workers raised from 800 thousand won a month to 1.2 million won (about US$700 to US$1050). For me, that’s what’s important now.

H: I heard that you were asked to write an oath to abide by the law while you were in prison, and you refused.

E: I was suffering so much that Anglican priests were petitioning the authorities on my behalf. I’m terribly grateful to them now, though part of that is because it’s my original faith. The authorities used that and told me they’d consider letting me out early if I wrote an apology or an oath to follow the law. But I refused. It wasn’t because of ideology. It was because it seemed like a denial of the least human dignity to bring an oath like that to someone who was already serving time based on a judicial ruling.

H: The conservative press and the New Frontier Party are using more redbaiting tactics against opposition candidates in the lead up to the election.

E: The Republic of Korea is a small country, without any natural resources to speak of. It’s also the only divided country in the world. Our real resource is our people, whose characteristics are very diverse. We need the kind of future-oriented thinking that respects diversity and uses it as a force for developing society. We’ll never progress if we remain tied to the past. In that sense, redbaiting is not suited to the people living here and now and dreaming of the future. It‘s an anachronism. I’d like to see the people in politics and opinion leaders become more mature.

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