Korea’s ‘young’ labor history
Since the Korean Metalworkers Union was founded in 2001, total KMWU membership has grown to about 150,000.
“We have a much younger history than American unions,” said KMWU’s international director Hye-won Chong. “I guess we’re what you’d call late bloomers. But we’re still the largest single union in Korea, and there were so many sacrifices made to reach that 150,000. ”
The KMWU president is Jung Gab Deuk.
Last year the KMWU held 14 general strikes, most in protest of the Korea-U.S. FTA, and more than 100,000 union workers joined in each of those demonstrations.
The roots of South Korea’s modern labor movement are laced with struggles of women workers in the garment industry during the 1970s.
Labor activism reached unprecedented heights during the Great Workers’ Struggle of 1987, regarded as the culmination of two decades of struggle by workers and organizers alike. More than 3,000 strikes took place, a time known to South Koreans as han, or long accumulated sorrow and regret over misfortune caused by injustice, which eventually led to South Korea’s first democratic elections that same year.
By 1995 they established the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, an umbrella organization similar to the AFL-CIO.
Membership is about 800,000 and includes 19 federations of workers from bus and taxi drivers to academic and health care professionals.
