------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the June 3, 2004 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
RESIST GOVERNMENT CRACKDOWN:
IMMIGRANT WORKERS WIN SUPPORT OF KOREAN STUDENTS, LABOR
By Deirdre Griswold Seoul, South Korea
Rolled-up sleeping bags and duffles line the walls. Hanging neatly above them are sweatshirts and other items of clothing. In typical Korean style, visitors take off their shoes at the door and step up to enter the long, narrow temporary dormitories where 100 immigrant workers have been living for six months, since South Korea began rounding up "guest workers" last Nov. 15 and deporting them.
The workers are camped out on the grounds of Myeongdong Cathedral, a place where labor leaders and others facing persecution have taken refuge in recent years. Slogans and images of resistance are painted along the outside walls of their sleeping quarters, where people passing by on the busy streets of this city can easily see them.
Sitting cross-legged on the spotless wooden floor of the barracks, several of the workers living there explain the situation they are in.
"They are treating us like criminals," says Masoom, a young man from Bangladesh who has lived and worked in South Korea for eight years. "The police use nylon nets, handcuffs and stun guns to catch us." Masoom is a member of the Equality Trade Union--Migrants Branch.
He explains that workers from 97 different countries live in South Korea today. They come from all over the world--Asia, Africa, Latin America and areas of the former Soviet Union--but most are from South Asia. One hundred young people from Bangladesh, the Philippines, Indo nesia and Nepal are sharing these sleeping quarters. An additional 100 from Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar have taken asylum at another group of temporary buildings on the cathedral's grounds.
VAST MIGRATION OF WORKERS
Korean society has been very homogeneous until recently. But the shift of capital all over the globe has forced hundreds of millions of people to migrate in search of work. South Korea has gone through a rapid industrialization geared to an import-export economy. As Korean workers have fought hard for better wages and working conditions, Korean bosses have looked abroad for cheaper labor. A "guest worker" program sought out young people from less developed countries and promised them an opportunity to work and study in South Korea.
"Last July, the parliament passed a law setting up the Employment Permit System," says Masoom. "It has caused a lot of problems for migrant workers. Big and small companies have been bringing foreign workers here as 'industrial trainees.' They are supposed to work four hours a day and study four hours. But most have to work more than 12 hours a day. When you complain that this violates the protections of the International Labor Organiz ation, the owners say, 'You are not laborers, you are students, younot eligible.'
"Also, under the EPS, you can stay here for four years. If you want to continue to work here, you have to leave and then come back again. We are paid low wages and can't afford this. If you have stayed more than four years, they will deport you."
Another Bangladeshi, Manik, joins the conversation. "You can't demand a raise, that depends on the employer. If the employer is angry or not satisfied with you, you must leave. The only way you can voluntarily change your job is if the company goes bankrupt or there's an accident, and then you must register the change with the Ministry of Labor. If it can't find you another job in three months, you must leave the country."
Last Nov. 15 was the government deadline for immigrant workers to register for work permits under the new law. Anyone who had been in the country for more than four years was not eligible and was supposed to leave. At that time, the South Korean government estimated there were 230,000 foreign workers in the country. An estimated 120,000 did not or could not comply with the new law.
The deadline created a crisis for the immi grant community. The Korean media reported that employers were taking advantage of impending expulsions to withhold some $2.6 million in wages owed to 1,460 workers.
In the week that the EPS went into effect, two immigrant workers facing depor tation committed suicide. A 31-year-old worker from Sri Lanka jumped in front of a subway train and a Bangladeshi hanged himself in a factory.
This led to organizing and large protests by both immigrants and Koreans. Mas oom recalls that many Korean students, workers from the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, and political groups--the Korean Democratic Labor Party and the Socialist Party--came to their support.
Some of the immigrants went on a month-long hunger strike, which stimulated more solidarity struggles. But the police raided the hunger strikers' shelters and sent them back home.
One of those deported was a leading organizer of the Equality Trade Union, Samar Thapa. The South Korean authorities dubbed him a "terrorist"--a label indignantly rejected by those who know him--and sent him back to Nepal, which is in the middle of a civil war. The KCTU sent a delegation to Nepal to get assurances that he would not be mistreated. "He should have been able to receive political asylum here because of the situation in his country. Instead, he was deported," says Manik.
Despite the harsh treatment by the author ities, more people are coming to South Korea looking for work. The newspaper JoongAng Daily reported on April 25 that "The Labor Ministry estimates that there were around 400,000 migrant workers in Korea at the beginning of this year, most of them from China and South east Asia, and about 35 percent of them here illegally."
The immigrants and the progressive movement are demanding that the South Korean government stop its repression of immigrant workers. Kim Jae- geun, secretary general of the Ansan Migrant Shelter, says, "Following the start of the government's deportation policy, the number of illegal workers has markedly increased. Instead of driving out the foreign workers already here who are familiar with Korea and have good skills, the government should grant them legal status. Not only are the government policies ineffective, they are provoking various human rights infringements against migrant workers. This must stop immediately," he said. (Korea Times, May 6)
SUICIDES AND MILITANT RESISTANCE
The Ansan Migrant Shelter keeps a tally of suicides since the EPS went into effect. The number had risen to 11 dead by the beginning of May.
The Korea Times article described two recent deaths:
"Last week, a Korean-Chinese industrial trainee committed suicide by jumping in front of a subway train in Taegu.
"The 34-year-old woman was reportedly suffering from major stress after her employer continued to withhold her wages, taking advantage of the fact that she would face becoming an illegal alien if he refused to extend her contract.
"'I want to go home, but my boss does not pay me money. The Labor Ministry was no help.... I cannot go home because I have no money. There is no solution, so I choose death,' read the suicide note she left behind.
"On April 16, a female Mongolian worker also flung herself in front of a subway train in Ansan, Kyonggi Province. She was sent to a nearby hospital for treatment but died the following day, leaving behind a bill for 8 million won in medical and funeral fees which her family has no way of paying.
"The Ansan Migrant Shelter, a civic group advocating the rights of foreign workers, said that the worker had experienced insulting remarks at her former workplace and was extremely distressed ahead of the government's intensive crackdown on illegal workers."
Masoom says that the Chinese woman worker who committed suicide in Taegu had not been paid in three months.
SO DIFFERENT YET SO MUCH IN COMMON
The migrant workers in South Korea are but one detachment of a huge global army of people who are having to migrate in search of work. The vast majority come from countries that have been pillaged and oppressed by colonial powers and are still dominated by the wealthy transnational corporations and banks of the imperialist world. Especially since the recent spurt of capitalist globalization, their lives have fallen apart.
They come from different climates, geographies, customs, languages and religions. But they are all workers, and they are sharing experiences in their struggle against a common oppression.
Workers from Indonesia--where the movement is still recovering from a U.S.-engineered military takeover in 1965 that led to the massacre of a million communists, progressives and nationalists--are sharing their ideas with workers from the Philippines, which became a virtual U.S. colony after the 1898 Spanish-American War. Workers from China, where the growth of the market has displaced millions who had depended on state-owned industry, are comparing notes with workers from Nepal, where the right-wing monarchy is shaken by both a Maoist guer rilla movement in the countryside and a pro-democracy struggle in the cities.
Immigrant workers are adding to the ferment going on among Korean youth, who themselves are worried there will be no jobs when they get out of school and have been militantly opposing the long-term U.S. occupation of their country.
Immigrant workers get low wages but many are computer savvy and politically conscious. The web site of the Equality Trade Union-Migrants Branch has pages in many languages. These young workers post their thoughts on what Karl Marx meant by the difference between socialism and communism, where the next protest will be held, how to get the release of their comrades from detention centers.
Never has the slogan "Workers and oppressed of all countries, unite!" been more relevant than today.
- END -
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