Union strategy to revitalize weakening worker representation in South Korea

Abstract

The rapid growth of South Korea's labor unions after 1987 Great Labor Offensive has been considered as one of the highest achievements in labor movement history. Yet now the social influence of labor unions in South Korea has been starkly reduced. For example, wage gaps between regular and non-regular workers and between workers at large and small companies have expanded, and union density as well as the application rate for collective agreements has fallen to about 10%. Rapid and dramatic changes in industrial structure and employment types coupled with regulatory limitations to collective agreement protections and application have reduced the appeal of union membership for many. And Korean unions have not seemed to adapt: although union membership is markedly industry-level, collective agreements are applied and managed within a traditional company-level IR framework. Unionism in South Korea needs urgent revitalization. The authors recommend this revitalization should proceed through institutional changes for improving workers' representation and through more also active organizing activity, but primarily it should happen through restoring a sense of solidarity among workers in the most basic sense.