South Korea’s 300 Day Aerial Sit-in Strike
Highlights Plight of Precarious Workers
in Korea and the Philippines
by Tammy Ko Robinson
November 1 marked the passage of day 300 of the aerial sit-in strike being waged by Kim Jin-suk.
The former employee of Hanjin and current Direction Committee member for the Busan chapter of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) and other union members face sub-zero temperatures and enforcement fines of one million Korean Won per day.
Currently, management and labour are reviewing a parliamentary proposal to reinstate laid-off workers, as numbers continue to grow supporting “A World without Redundancy Dismissals and Precarious Work.”
The case, and the solidarity movement it prompted, illuminates issues of precarious, contract and migrant labour in South Korea, the Philippines, Germany the United States and beyond.
Hanjin Industries Face Growing Popular Support
From atop the No. 85 crane’s cab 35 meters above Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction’s (HHIC) Yeongdo Shipbuilding Yard in Busan, Kim Jin Sook has been protesting the company’s December 15, 2010 announced plan of a reduction in the workforce, is supported on the ground by the Korean Metal Workers’ Federation (KMWU).
Not long after HHIC gave notice to workers, the company’s shareholders received dividends of 17.4-billion Won, more than three times the combined annual salaries of the 170 dismissed workers who have refused to comply.
Over the past decade HHIC has made profits of 430-billion Won, and bought 15-billion Won in shares in another company. During the January strike, management reportedly fired 290 manufacturing workers.
Police block demonstrators marching towards the shipyard of Hanjin Heavy Industries in Busan on July 10, 2011.
On July 9, 2011 175 “Hope Buses” and 50 vans, a figure approximating the total number of days of Kim had been occupying Crane No. 85, arrived at Busan’s Central Bus Terminal carrying approximately 12,000 riders from cities and regions across South Korea, including Gwangju, Pyeongtaek, Daegu, Suwon, and Seoul.
While the Hope Bus riders were met en route by 2,000 police officers blocking the last 700 meters to the Yeongdo Ship Yard with a temporary barricade and a mixture of liquid tear gas and pepper spray, nearly 3,000 of the Hope Bus riders remained steadfast throughout the night and the monsoon rains determined to act as witnesses in behalf of Kim Jin-suk.
As a point of comparison, the first Hope Bus caravan held on the 158-day of the HHIC struggle was comprised of approximately 750 participants who joined nearly 7,000 workers and local citizens demonstrating.
At the time, 100 unionists had roped themselves around the crane’s base and the number has since declined due to illness and other factors raising concerns about the nature of Kim’s isolation.
On July 30, the numbers for the third Hope Bus caravan climbed to 15,000 people. Leaders of faith including Protestant Churches, Buddhist Orders, and Catholic Dioceses from all over South Korea, members of the press, university professors, lawyers and leaders of civil society joined together to demand a just resolution.
Mid-July to August is a time when many South Koreans take their summer vacations, and observers found it striking that growing numbers of non-unionists were willing to take their time and pay the 30,000 Won roundtrip bus fare to support Kim Jin Sook.
On August 27-28, a fourth Hope Bus caravan with an estimated 5,000 individuals supporting both the reinstatement of the discharged HHIC workers and conversion of temporary workers to regular workers changed course and headed to Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction Co. Ltd Seoul Headquarters, and Seoul’s downtown Gwanghwamun.[1] They were met by a Seoul Police Agency deployment of 9,000.
In September and October, venues of support continued to vary and statements of support emanated from those participating in the funeral procession of Lee So-seon, the mother of South Korea’s revered labour activist Chun Tae-il. Her son was a garment worker whose self-immolation in 1970 in protest of sweatshop working conditions sparked nation-wide protests and is now commemorated as a national hero.
It also included a pledge of support from a group of 1,543 South Korean film workers traveling to South Korea’s Busan International Film Festival, Asia’s largest and increasingly significant film hub, via a self-declared Hope Bus.
And, on October 8 at 9:30 p.m. ET, Kim Jin-suk spoke at the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) general assembly addressing “friends who fight in Wall Street, in the heart of neoliberalism” via her mobile phone and human mic about the HHIC situation saying, “We are fighting the same fight.”
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