Korea's Militant Labor

I have always had a less-than-glowing impression of South Korea's labor movement. I guess this has partly (or mainly) to do with all the reports I've read over the years about walk-outs, sit-ins, and strikes that were conducted on a regular basis.

I've always thought that "gee-whiz, don't these people know any better about?", and wondered how labor can keep on taking militant action and hope to remain competitive in the long run. Already, Korean wages are one of the highest in the region, so how can workers keep asking for more and expect to keep their jobs? Isn't it like digging their own graves?

After all, economics dictate that there is a price to pay for better wages and shorter working hours. And sometimes, technical superiority, better skills, and higher efficiency does not always, even with the best of intentions, move in tandem with these higher wages and shorter working hours.

Especially galling, I thought, was last year's strike by Korean Air pilots who, from the standpoint of most ordinary people like myself, make such indecent amounts of money. Hence, I was more than happy when the government ordered them to return to work.

With Pyongyang being an unstable factor which had resulted in rating firms giving Korea a higher risk factor than it otherwise deserved, I've always thought that Korea doesn't need to add "militant labor" to the list of reasons deemed as the country's source of "instability".

But while I am still unsympathetic to the strike by Korean Air pilots, recently I've became more sympathetic, even saddened, after reading about the history of Korea's labor movement. The repressive and high-handedness adopted by both the authorities and large companies were a shame, as were the self-immolations by labor activists. Given past problems such as low wages, poor working conditions, repressiveness, and a despotic and patriarchal labor-management relations, I now begin to see the labor situation in a different light.

But even with a greater sense of sympathy and hopefully a better understanding of the causes of Korea's militant labor movement, I also wonder if all the ills of the past can continue to justify labor's continued aggressiveness.