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(Free Labour World, february 1997)
Korea has chosen the wrong way to embark on the globalisation train. First it deceived its own people by frustrating their legitimate expectations for an improvement in working and living conditions commensurate with continuous economic growth, particularly now that it has joined the club of rich nations, the OECD. The new legislation rushed through parliament at a secret meeting on December 26 gives a free hand to employers to exploit workers or sack them en masse in the name of "flexibility". Even worse is that by introducing the deregulation of the labour market it denies workers' freely chosen trade unions the right to influence that process by maintaining most of the repressive provisions contained in the "old" laws inherited from past military regimes, including the ban on trade unions. It has also duped the international community by reneging on its own commitments made upon joining the ILO, in 1991, and more recently in making its way to the OECD. The courageous struggle by Korean trade unions and their workers and the show of unity they illustrate with the FKTU and KCTU joining forces has won them the support of Korean public opinion and is certainly the most appropriate response to the government's ill-considered move. The international response was no weaker thanks, to a great extent, to the prompt and determined solidarity action by ICFTU affiliates and its regional organisations, the ITSs, the ETUC and the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD. The ILO intervened with the authorities and continues to monitor the situation.
Next month its Freedom of Association Committee will examine the ICFTU complaint lodged within hours of the government's announcement. The OECD,albeit in diplomatic terms, strongly rebuked Seoul's move and reminded them, and the world, of their own pledge. If the Korean manoeuvre, doomed to failure, holds a lesson it is that countries willing to access the benefits of world trade will increasingly be reminded that there are basic rules and that one of them is that globalisation should benefit working people. Korea's example shows that, yes, there is a link between trade and workers' rights. Governments that rejected the principle of a social clause in the WTO and those (often the same) which resist calls for dialogue on their economic and social plans will do well to ponder over the events in Korea. Workers' discontent now simmering in many parts of the "global village" tells them they should do so urgently.
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