South Korea – foreign labor and environment problems.

Foreign Labor: Theory – unfree labor as an integral part of the capitalist mode of production at all stages of its historic development. “Illegal” migrant labor (around 6 mln. people) – exploited harshly in the USA as well.

South Korea: Beginning of the importation of Asian labor in 1987, when, after a series of strikes, Korean unionized workers obtained better conditions of labor. Now approximately 300-400 thousands of the foreign manual workers back up Korea’s industrial pyramid acting as a “safety valve” in the time of woes and allowing the employers to check the chronic discontent of their “native” workforce with some extra perks. Basically, the foreign workers represent in Korea a quintessential “internal colony” of mature industrialism – an over-exploited, underpaid, thoroughly downtrodden stratum, somewhere in the lowest part of the social hierarchy. But there are also some important features that distinguish them clearly from other oppressed and subjugated strata of Korean society (say, part-time workers or low-wage female employees) and turn their life in Korea in one unending, excruciating, unbelievably painful battle for survival and a minimum of human dignity.

First, around 67% of them are “illegal immigrants” (see “South Korea’s Hard Labor” in <Far Eastern Economic Review>, March 29, 2001) – compare it with 7,4% in Taiwan or 3,2% in Singapore. To be classified as “illegal worker” in Korea means to forfeit almost every right you may claim as a worker. The foreign (mostly Asian) workers may be cruelly beaten by bosses for kindly asking him to pay the long-delayed wages they earned, and they still prefer to grin and bear it, rather then to report to police and risk deportation. The beating and verbal abuses may occur everyday at the workplace, unless they will not master Korean speedy enough to understand every word of command given – or, rather, shouted – by the superiors. The exploitation of “illegal” – thus, undemanding and docile – workforce being hugely profitable business, the existence of more than 250 thousands of “illegal allies in our midst” is normally tacitly approved by the immigration authorities. But as soon as almost annual “strike hard” campaign against the “illegal residents” announced, the new and worst wave of violence arises in the Immigration Offices and police boxes all around the country. Thousands of foreign workers dragged by the police enforcement net, are forced to pay huge fines (while the delayed back wages are not necessarily paid to them!) and leave the country. In many cases, even the existence of a Korean wife or partner would not prevent a male foreign “illegal” from being arrested and deported – until very recently, the relevant laws were interpreted by the immigration authorities in the way that only a marriage of a foreign female with a Korean male would give a foreigner rights to permanent residence, and not vice versa, and, in any case, it is close to impossible for a foreign “illegal” to register marriage with a Korean woman. In a word, “illegality” of the majority of foreign workers means that the legal norms of both Korea’s internal laws and international human rights agreements will be never applied to them.

Second, Korean state does not present the foreigners from the poorer countries with any meaningful alternative to the “illegal” labor and the life of humiliation and suffering it entails. Currently the only “legal” channel the foreign (mostly Asian) manual labor can enter Korea is much-flawed “industrial trainee system” which presupposes that, as just a “trainee”, a foreign worker will receive not more than 20-30% of his/her Korean counterpart’s wage for essentially the same (or even harder) labor. And, of course, however “legal” a “trainee” may be, there are no working mechanisms protecting him/her from the wage delays and abuses. Not surprisingly, 52 of the total 89 thousands of “trainees” are currently accounted for as “fugitives” (<The Seoul Herald>, July 18, 2002). They seemingly understood that, real conditions being largely the same, “illegal” employment still offered better earnings. Now, Korean government advertises the project of extending the “trainee” quota for the next year to 145 thousands as the solution to the acute lack of the workforce in the small and medium-sized businesses. NGOs vocally support the idea of allowing a certain number of certified foreign workers to get employment visas and search for jobs in Korea on their own legally, but government seems to be impenetrable on this issue, mainly due to the lobbying by the Federation of the Small and Medium-Sized Industries, which earns enormous profits as the only agent in shipping the “trainees” into the country.

Accounts of the hardships encountered by the migrant labor in Korea, are manifold.

- one huge issue is unusually high accidents rate, due to the low standards of workplace safety in the smaller factories, negligence of Korean administration, and language barriers (most instructions are in Korean, which many migrants don’t read): <Korea Times>, October 29, 2002: One in Two Migrant Workers Injured Within a Year:

By Soh Ji-young
Staff Reporter

“A total 49.7 percent of migrant workers who were affected by industrial hazards were injured within one year of entering the country, according to a study conducted by the Association for Migrant Workers’ Human Rights.

The association said this underlines the need for improved industrial safety training for migrant workers at the beginning of their employment period.

Migrant workers suffered workplace injuries within an average one year and nine months after entering the country, while 56.5 percent of those surveyed suffered workplace injuries within three months of employment.

The group studied the records of 545 migrant workers who sought advice after being injured in industrial accidents from a number of counseling centers in the Seoul metropolitan area from March to September of this year.

Of these workers, 13.7 percent reported suffering accidents within a week of commencing employment, the group said.

More than half of those surveyed, 56.2 percent, reported not receiving any safety training before starting work.

``The results of the survey shows that migrant workers are extremely vulnerable to industrial accidents,’’ said Seok Won-jeong, head of the association.

``Many of the accidents could have been easily prevented if the workers had received adequate safety and job training or some Korean language lessons,’’ she said, adding that there was even a case where a migrant worker was injured within one hour of starting work.

Obtaining compensation for the accidents is another problem faced by the workers, Seok said. She went on to cite the fact that only 59.2 percent of the victims received adequate compensation from the Korea Labor Welfare Corporation, and that a considerable number were forced to pay for treatment themselves.

``The government should strengthen workplace monitoring and ensure the necessary job training is provided to migrant workers to prevent industrial accidents,’’ she said.»

- other issue is sexual exploitation of “foreign entertainers” kept in what is close to debt slavery. Korea’s sex industry employs several hundred thousands of women (many of whom are indentured, non-free laborers and have no freedom of movement), and the number of foreigners among them is on increase: <Korea Herald>, Editorial, October 21, 2002:

Shameless exploitation

It is shameful that a group of young Philippine women were forced to engage in prostitution by a cruel nightclub owner near the U.S. military base in Dongducheon, north of Seoul. They were not only beaten and coerced into selling sex against their will but also confined in an inhumane condition without getting due payments for their service. What is even more appalling is that they were expatriated in accordance with the relevant law before they were even compensated for their suffering.

The heartrending stories about the 11 Filipinas, the youngest of them at 16, became known when the local office of the International Office for Migration recently turned in a report on their cases to its headquarters in Geneva. The Philippine government will reportedly lodge a compensation suit against the nightclub owner who has already been found guilty by the criminal court. It will be the first legal case brought by a foreign government against an abusive employer of migrant workers in the country.

Our attention is drawn to this particular episode because migrant workers are frequently exploited here, and there had been similar tragedies involving young Korean women. Five women in their early 20s were burned to death in an iron-barred room of a brothel in Gunsan, North Jeolla Province in 2000. The tragic death of these women, enslaved due to debt bondages, were covered up by local police before it was brought to public attention by a lawyer months later.

The Philippine women came to Korea on arts and entertainment visas, or E-6 visas, in March this year and worked at a nightclub until they were removed on a tip from a Korean in June. They were deported later in the month on charges of violating a law banning prostitution. The Philippine government will demand the bar owner pay each of the women 20 million won in compensation for physical and financial damage they suffered.

It is assumed that these Philippine women represent isolated cases, but there are numerous foreign females suffering under similar circumstances. The recent Justice Ministry statistics say that a total of 4,735 foreign women, a great majority of them from the Philippines and Russia, obtained E-6 visas during June alone. Of these, the ministry said, 4,234 worked at nightspots and entertainment establishments for tourists.

The government is urged to revise the relevant laws and work out measures for better management of foreign workers, especially those women who fall victim to human traffickers and abusive employers. Otherwise, the nation will have to expect more such lawsuits in the future. It will also be impossible to shed its reputation as a backward society that exploits citizens from fellow Asian countries with less developed economies

- finally, one group of the foreign workers is discriminated against another: for example, those transferred from the Korean-invested factories abroad, earn only 10-20% of Korean worker’s average wage, and unable to redress their grievances legally: <Asia Labor Update>, Issue No. 42, January - March 2002:

Legal exploitation of migrants in South Korea

By Kim Aehwa

”Last year, over 280 Chinese workers in a single textile factory located in South Korea demonstrated to demand payment of the legal minimum wage. The 280 workers were receiving as little as their counterpart workers in a subsidiary Korean-invested factory in China, where the cost of living is considerably less than in South Korea.

These workers transferred from the factory in China, which is owned by the same Korean company. The factory in China is in Qingdao city, Shandong province. In that factory there are around 1,000 Chinese workers who receive around Rmb350 (US$1 = Rmb8.3) per month, the Shandong provincial minimum wage. According to workers interviewed by AMRC (Asia Monitor Resource Center), they believe that if they go to Korea, they can earn at least 10 times as much as they earn in China as a basic wage.

Because of this dream, they are not reluctant to spend at least Rmb10,000 (about 29 months’ salary) to go and work in Korea. They think it is advantageous to be recruited by their own company because the expenditure is less than applying to private agencies individually, and they get the same treatment as other migrant workers who go to Korea through private recruitment agencies contracted to the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Businesses.

Naturally they are angry on finding out that Korea has different regulations for different classes of migrant workers.The workers appealed to the labour ministry that the company should be forced to pay the legal wage and backpay of the difference between the minimum wage and what they had been receiving.

But the labour ministry interpreted the law to favour the company - that it is lawful for the company to pay less than minimum wages to Chinese workers who had entered South Korea since 2000. The ministry claimed this ruling was according to regulations governing payment of trainees who had transferred from Korean invested companies overseas.

The regulations concerning foreign trainees in South Korean-invested factories overseas were established to protect trainees working in overseas invested companies as much as other migrant workers in South Korea.

There are three types of migrant workers in Korea:

undocumented (illegal) workers

migrant workers registered as trainees by the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Businesses

trainees from overseas invested companies

Among the three groups, it was discovered that workers in the last one were in the worst situation. There were no regulations to protect them until a new regulation to cover them was established in December 1999.

Workers from overseas invested companies are protected by the Industrial Accident Compensation Law and the Minimum Wage Act. But there is still a big legal loophole whereby workers who are paid by the original factory abroad can be paid the same wage as the workers there.
This allows Korean companies to use the legal loophole to exploit migrant labour.

In Korea the minimum wage is 40 percent of the Korean national workers’ average wages. In effect, Koreans will not work for such poor pay. The workers who it is really meant for are foreign trainees. This Korean factory employs Korean workers, normal migrant workers, and migrant workers transferred from overseas factories – all on different pay rates. Even though workers perform the same job, work the same hours under the same roof, three legal wage systems apply.

Compared to Korean workers, migrant workers usually get 60-70 percent, but migrant workers transferred from overseas factories get only 10-20 percent.”

Environment Problems/Movements:

Korean Federation of Environmental Movements: KFEM: self-presentation:

“KFEM was founded in April, 1993. This relatively recent date was, however, preceded by a decade-long history of environmental concern. Mr. Yul Choi, a leading figure in Korea's environmental movement 18 years ago when he was incarcerated for his struggle against the dictatorial government of the time. In 1982, Mr. Choi and his fellow activists established the Korean Research Institute of Environmental Problems, the first organized environmental movement in Korea. It assisted the struggle of local inhabitants in region around the nations' industrial complexes to safeguard their living rights from pollution. In 1986, an illness called the "Onsan Disease" arose in the southeast costal city of Onsan. The cause of this disease was linked to the compound toxic wastes discarded by the non-ferrous industrial complex within the region. The Research institute publicized the incident and its effects on the victims, calling for public attention.

The powerful Korea Anti-pollution Movement Association(KAPMA) emerged in 1988 from amongst the growing anti-pollution movements which had been led by citizens and youth groups. The KAPMA led the environmental movement in Korea until it was dissolved with the aim to reorganize activists nationwide and to launch the Korean Federation for Environmental Movement.

The KAPMA actively participated in eveut environmental struggle between 1988 and 1992. It fought against the governmental attempt to site nuclear waste dumping; against the dust contamination from coal briquette factories; against the destruction of mountain forests to make golf courses: and against the reclamation of coastal shelves. It organized the Earth Day Festival of 1990, and also incited the massive campaign to protest against the toxic spill incident that contaminsted the piped drinking water of Taegu City.

KAPMA led a troupe of 50 activists to the '92 Global Forum in Rio De Janeiro, where the activists participated in various meetings: anti-nuclear movement meetions, waste treary meetings, and women's and teachers' group meetings.

This movement, at the same time, was considered to have constituted one of the most strongholds not only in the environmental movement, but also in the movement for democracy which continued in Korea until the late 1980's. And in the 1990's KFEM expanded its fronts to encompass the domestic problems of air and water polltion and urban waste. It also became involved in global environmental issues such as depletation of ozone layer, the logging of rainforests, and the greenhouse effect.

Although the civil environmental movement has taken a great roll in our society, it hasn't met the people's needs because of financial problem, lack of place, etc. For this reason KFEM is planning to build a civil environmental center named "Korean environmental Center." Environmental education for children with audio-visual materials, fast & accurate environmental information, and a environmental network between each international environmental group across all borders. We can expect environmental groups to do more preventative and systematic civil environmental activities through offering them enough space which most environmental groups can't get becase of the financial problems.

It was not until Choi Yul, Secretary General of KFEM, donated all the prize money from the Goldman Environmental Award for building a citizens' environmental center the fundraising started. From this year, the head office of the foundation has been organized, and a nation-wide fundraising campaign is being actively driven. People who would take responsibility for our future generations will be the owner of the citizen's environmental center. For this reason people's voluntary contributions, ideas and will ble greatly needed to accomplish this task.

Now, the headquarters of the KFEM are located in downtown Seoul. The national center, educational center, information center(CICE), editorial room etc are housed in it. And 25 local branches works vigorously with 25,000 members in various fields such as anti-nuclear power movement, “Save our sea” campaigns, educational activities, citizens' watch programme etc.”