The National Samsung Electronics Union (NSEU), one of the five unions at Samsung Electronics in South Korea, began its strike on July 8 of this year, for the first time in the company\u2019s 55-year history. The union organizes about 32,000 workers, around 25% of the Samsung Electronics workforce. The strike lasted for 25 days until August 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The strike attracted worldwide attention, especially in its early stages. Some short video clips, showing thousands of strikers wearing black at the July 8 rally, went viral on social media platforms with millions of viewers worldwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why did the strike attract such a big global attention? There seem to be two aspects. First, the strike took place at one of the largest multinational companies with international influence, producing smartphones, smart TVs, semiconductors, etc. Especially, the fact that it followed the UAW strike at the Big 3 auto companies in the US ten months later spread the feeling that workers\u2019 struggles in strategic sectors are growing around the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second reason why the strike attracted a lot of global attention is that the video clips showed a kind of workers\u2019 militancy with systematic discipline. Acutually, the South Korean workers\u2019 movement has a unique tradition of disciplined militancy. The strike showed a glimpse of this tradition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the great global attention showed, the strike at Samsung Electronics had some significant aspects, especially in the international arena.\/ So let me explain the background of the strike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2020, Samsung Electronics declared to abandon its \u201cnon-union\u201d policy as one of the results of the nationwide candlelight protests in 2016-17 and its judicial aftermath. At that time, the president of South Korea was impeached and the vice chairman of Samsung Electronics was imprisoned for more than a year for bribing the former president. In addition, several managers at Samsung Electronics were punished for a series of illegal anti-union actions by the company. As one of the efforts to reduce the punishment, Samsung Electronics had to declare the abandonment of its non-union policy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before then, Samsung Electronics was notorious for its non-union policy in South Korea. The company didn\u2019t allow any unionization in its workplaces and repeatedly attacked unionization efforts for more than 50 years. Hundreds of workers who tried to form a union at Samsung Electronics faced harsh repression, including total surveillance, intense pressure through intimate relationships, bribery, co-optation, pre-emptive or retaliatory firings, and even induced suicides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The purpose of the \u201cnon-union policy\u201d was to secure huge profits through the harsh exploitation of workers. Ignoring workers\u2019 safety was an important part of this. During the period of non-union policy, Samsung Electronics was widely criticized for the severity of its occupational diseases. Thousands of Samsung Electronics workers have suffered from critical cancers or incurable diseases as a result of the company\u2019s dangerous working conditions involving various toxic chemicals. Approximately 600 Samsung Electronics workers have lost their lives due to work-related cancers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the company announced its abandonment of the \u201cnon-union policy\u201d in 2020, five unions were formed and have tried to organize the workers at Samsung Electronics. And this year, one of those unions finally went on the first strike in the company\u2019s history. So the unionization and strike at Samsung Electronics must be a significant advance from the perspective of the working class. This is especially true since the strike ended with no results, and the union criticized the company for continuing a de facto \u201cnon-union\u201d policy by ignoring the union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And we must note the global impact of the strike. Unlike its abandonment of the non-union policy in South Korea, the company has effectively maintained the policy outside South Korea, in all other countries where it operates, including Vietnam, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Hungary, and Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, sometimes the company\u2019s \u201cnon-union policy\u201d has a flexible format. For example, Samsung Electronics plants in Vietnam, the main manufacturer of its smartphones, have official unions under the control of the Communist Party. Samsung Electronics has allowed these official unions because they are effective tools to prevent workers from forming independent real unions. Thus, in Vietnam, the \u201cnon-union policy\u201d of Samsung Electronics has taken the form of collaboration with the ruling Communist Party, which uses official unions to keep workers under top-down control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The purpose of the \u201cnon-union policy\u201d outside South Korea has also been to secure huge profits. As one of the largest multinational corporations, Samsung Electronics’ profit reached $45 billion in 2022 alone. A significant part of this huge profit comes from the super-exploitation of Samsung Electronics workers outside South Korea and the greater super-exploitation of workers along the company\u2019s supply chain around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Under these circumstances, a newly formed union at one of Samsung Electronics\u2019 two plants in India, the Samsung India Workers\u2019 Union, passed a resolution at its first General Body meeting on July 8, expressing solidarity with striking Samsung Electronics workers in South Korea. The union was formed under the guidance of the Center of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), a national trade union center in India affiliated with the Communist Party of India (Marxist). But we heard from a revolutionary socialist in India that the ripple effect of the unionization and strike at Samsung Electronics in South Korea was another important impetus that promoted the unionization at Samsung Electronics in India. As the strike gives confidence to many workers around the world, such a ripple effect should be amplified and shared as widely as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, we have to go further. We need to analyze not only the positive side of the strike, but also its shortcomings and limitations. To do this, we need to start with the fact that the Samsung Electronics strike received relatively little attention in South Korea, in contrast to the global response. There are several reasons for this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First, the strike was not as strong as it was seen. The number of strikers was estimated at a maximum of 6,000 workers, about 5 percent of the total workforce and 20 percent of the union members. This is not a small number, but they did not try to occupy workplaces or block the gate with picket lines. Instead, they organized only three large rallies outside the workplaces and small propaganda campaigns in the internal cafeterias. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The union is mainly composed of workers from the old semiconductor line. So only the old semiconductor line was affected by the strike. In other words, the more lucrative production lines for the cutting-edge semiconductors, smart TVs, or smartphones were not affected. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Therefore, by the standards of the history of class struggle in South Korea, which has experienced many militant strikes in large companies or strategic sectors, the Samsung Electronics strike was too peaceful to attract the attention of ordinary people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second reason why the strike received relatively little attention in South Korea was that it was seen as another example of the regular workers\u2019 unions focusing only on improving their own conditions without contributing to improving the general conditions of ordinary workers. This was the more important point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The union once raised the issue of work-related musculoskeletal injuries to the joints, hands, wrists, legs, and even kidneys of female workers on the old semiconductor line. If the union had focused on this issue, it could have attracted strong attention and support from ordinary workers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But unfortunately, the union focused on increasing their wages and bonuses as the main demand for their strike. The union compared their wages and bonuses with those of Hyundai Motor Company workers, one of the highest paid workers, along with Samsung Electronics workers themselves. The union did not show any interest in the need to increase the relatively low or very low wages of the irregular workers in and around Samsung Electronics, even though there is a huge disparity between the two groups of workers. For example, in 2022, the average annual salary, including wages and bonuses, at Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor Company was about $90,000, while the average annual salary of all workers in South Korea was about $32,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another factor that showed the important limitations of this strike was related to a major fire tragedy at Aricell, a battery subsidiary of S-Connect, one of the suppliers of Samsung Electronics. The major fire occurred on June 24, just two weeks before the start of the strike at Samsung Electronics, and killed five Korean workers, one Laotian worker, and seventeen Chinese workers. All of them were irregular workers in the form of subcontracted workers. The families of the victims have been fighting against the company and the local government to get justice for the victims. However, the union at Samsung Electronics didn\u2019t make any statement on the tragedy and didn\u2019t show any solidarity with the victims or their families during the strike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So the strike at Samsung Electronics was considered another example of the regular workers\u2019 unions at large companies that have focused only on their own wages and working conditions, showing no interest in other workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To understand this phenomenon and its implications for the class struggle more broadly, you need to see the overall big picture of capitalism and class struggle in South Korea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Korean War, from 1950 to 1953, destroyed the entire workers’ movement and all kinds of revolutionary movements, allowing the Korean capitalists to exploit and oppress the workers to a very high degree. From the 1950s to the 1970s, the United States provided South Korea with extraordinary economic and military aid in the context of the Cold War. After the breakdown of the Cold War in the 1990s, Korean capitalism, as the geographically closest and technologically more developed economy to China, took advantage of the rise of the Chinese economy in the context of the US-China honeymoon of globalization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a result, Korean capitalism has been able to experience several decades of consecutive growth despite some moments of crisis. The rapid growth of Korean capitalism has brought a significant increase in the real wages of the working masses. However, the terrible neglect and repression of workers’ rights resulted in the longest level of working hours in the world, the highest rate of fatal industrial accidents, and the widest gender wage gap. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The notorious exploitation and oppression made the Korean workers’ struggles highly militant and dynamic as a reflex. The great strike wave of 1987 and the general strike of 1996-97, which demonstrated the revolutionary potential of the Korean working class, attracted the attention of many workers and socialists around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 1987 Great Worekrs’ Struggle, a great strike wave, was the starting point of the independent trade union movement as a mass movement. From July to September 1987, there were 3,341 strikes with 1.2 million participants. Almost all of them were illegal, and in most cases, the workers occupied their factories in a very militant way. As a result of the strike wave, about 1,000 new democratic unions were formed at the workplace level. The process of uniting democratic unions at the regional and national levels, overcoming the harsh repression of the military dictatorship, finally led to the building of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), the national center of democratic trade unions, in 1995.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 1996-97 General Strike against the neoliberal labor reform lasted 24 days, with 150,000 to 350,000 participants each day. The general strike was much stronger than the number of participants because it covered the most important sectors of Korean capitalism. It didn\u2019t fully achieve its goal, but it managed to change the relationship between classes to some extent. The participation of hundreds of thousands of workers in the month-long general strike led to a massive consciousness of themselves as the working class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the suppression of workers’ basic rights, such as the right to unionize and the right to strike, through various bad labor laws, has kept the rate of unionization very low and made the workers who lead or even participate in the struggles face extreme adversity. The suppression of the freedom of thought through the National Security Law has severely hindered the Korean working masses from developing the consciousness of the working class towards socialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a result, the Korean workers’ movement has a unique characteristic, a structural imbalance between dynamic mass struggle and fragile class consciousness or revolutionary perspective, in other words, a structural imbalance between a strong workers\u2019 movement and a fragile socialist movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, the East Asian Economic Crisis of the late 1990s and its aftermath have shaped another unique feature of capitalism and class struggle in South Korea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In overcoming the crisis, the South Korean conglomerates developed a highly effective super-exploitation system of irregular workers in and around the conglomerates, mainly in the form of subcontracted workers, temporary workers, and self-employed workers. This system proved to be highly competitive in the world market during and after the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. As a result, some South Korean conglomerates, such as Samsung, Hyundai, SK, and LG, have surpassed some of their international competitors to become some of the strongest multinational manufacturing companies in the world. The tremendous development of the conglomerates has led to great disparities in wages and working conditions between regular workers in large companies and irregular workers in small and medium companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More importantly, these disparities occurred in the context of the defeat of a series of workers\u2019 struggles at large companies and strategic sectors against neoliberal attacks, including mass layoffs and privatization, in the late 1990s and the early 2000s. Almost all of these struggles were defeated by the betrayal of the union leaders, who abandoned their promises to fight these attacks to the end, especially when the ordinary union members were still showing strong militant attitudes. Most of the union leaders, stuck in the reformist perspective, couldn\u2019t come up with or believe in a real alternative to neoliberal capitalism. These defeats were another example of a structural imbalance between dynamic mass struggle and a fragile revolutionary perspective. Such tragic experiences rapidly destroyed the militant, democratic, and class-conscious traditions that had previously been built up in the unions in large companies and strategic sectors through many occupation strikes, rank-and-file initiatives to overcome the betrayals of the leaders, and leading roles in general strikes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a result, the ordinary union members in large companies and strategic sectors became stuck in a state of labor aristocracy. These unions became stuck in narrow unionism and economism, focusing only on their economic problems in their workplaces. The fact that these unions were the backbone of the KCTU made the whole KCTU considerably bureaucratized. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
These disparities between regular and irregular workers have also affected the terrain of the class struggle. Most of the irregular workers consider these disparities more serious than the much wider gap between the capitalists and the working class, because the regular workers are closer to them. Taking advantage of this feeling among irregular workers, the bourgeois parties have successfully isolated the regular workers\u2019 unions in large companies and strategic sectors, which has very important potential for advancing the class struggle in South Korea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The problem of irregular workers, that is, the fact that the main labor force in society is constantly suffering from unstable employment, low wages, and therefore endless poverty, has massively affected the whole society. Now, when the world is talking about the myth of South Korea\u2019s great economic success from one of the poorest countries to a developed country in just a few decades, Korean society is experiencing the world’s worst suicide rate, the highest elderly poverty rate, and the lowest fertility rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In particular, the world’s lowest fertility rate, which recorded only 0.72 in 2023, seriously threatens the sustainability of the society itself. The low income and unstable employment of irregular women workers have largely contributed to the world\u2019s lowest fertility rate. According to recent data, the fertility rate of underemployed irregular women workers has been only a quarter of that of regular women workers in large companies for the past 14 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The impact of the problem of irregular workers has reached the consciousness of young people. In the eyes of the new generation, being an irregular worker means no house, no child, no marriage, and even no love in their lives. Only 20 to 30 percent of the new workers can become regular workers. And once you become an irregular worker, it is very difficult to become a regular worker. Thus, for the past 20 years, university students have been overwhelmed by the stress of preparing for getting regular workers\u2019 jobs, and this has led to the weakening of the student movement, which is now at its lowest level of activity in history. The consciousness of ordinary young people is dominated by meritocracy. So, many of the young regular workers have shown their reactionary opposition to the regularization of the irregular workers in their workplaces. And the young irregular workers, who are the majority of young people, have lost their voice due to defeatist self-consciousness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, under these circumstances, what have the revolutionary socialists been doing to overcome this problem?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The revolutionary socialists in South Korea have thought that the Korean workers\u2019 movement can go ahead only by overcoming the problem of irregular workers, and that this is possible only by organizing class-conscious unity between regular and irregular workers. Therefore, for the past 20 years, we have been doing a lot of things to build irregular workers\u2019 unions and to promote class-conscious unity between rank-and-file militant regular workers and irregular workers\u2019 unions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1998, when the East Asian economic crisis hit South Korea, the Hyundai Motor Workers Union (HMWU) was the most powerful union in South Korea. In July and August 1998, the HMWU occupied the main plant of Hyundai Motor Company (HMC) in Ulsan for 38 days with 5,000 strikers against mass layoffs that would sacrifice 30% of the entire workforce. When riot police surrounded the plant and tried to crush the strike, the workers, armed with iron pipes and flammable materials, showed a determined will to resist at any cost. And in front of the armed workers, there were 300 wives of the strikers, standing with their children. The government had to stop the violent repression, which obviously would have caused considerable casualties. However, after the repression was halted, the union president reached an agreement with management to reduce the number of layoffs based on the ruling party’s arbitration, although the union had argued for a complete withdrawal of all layoffs. Most strikers were deeply disappointed by the betrayal, and the strike suddenly collapsed. Although the agreement was not approved in a vote at a general assembly after the strike ended, it was enforced by the company. The cafeteria workers, who were overwhelmingly female and the most prominent protagonists of the strike, became the main victims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2000, when the economy was recovering rapidly, the company needed to hire as many workers as it had laid off two years earlier. The company wanted to hire this number of workers as subcontracted workers, that is, as irregular workers, instead of regular workers. The union agreed with the company with little resistance from below. This was the result of the rapid retreat from the union\u2019s militant and class-conscious tradition after the terrible betrayal and defeat in the 1998 strike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2003, revolutionary socialists were able to lead the formation of several irregular workers\u2019 unions in the HMC and other large companies. In the mid-2000s, the struggles of these irregular workers’ unions were led by revolutionary socialists. They argued for the abolition of the irregular work system through the unity of all workers. The struggles led to the formation of new militant and class-conscious activists among both irregular and regular workers. But the situation around the irregular workers’ unions was very harsh. The irregular workers’ unions continued to be attacked by the capitalists and suffered from hundreds of dismissals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In July 2010, as the anger of irregular workers throughout society reached a boiling point, the Supreme Court ruled that an HMC subcontracted worker who had been fired in 2005 should be considered directly employed by HMC for illegally dispatched workers. The ruling provoked a 25-day occupation strike by irregular workers at HMC in November-December 2010. The irregular workers’ unions at HMC, which organized about 20 percent of the 10,000 subcontracted workers, occupied one of the five assembly plants in Ulsan to block production. Under the strong influence of the revolutionary socialists, the strikers demanded the regularization of all subcontracted workers to abolish the irregular work system at HMC, regardless of the duration, area, or nature of their work, which could be segregated by future court rulings. Although the official leadership of the regular workers\u2019 union, the HMWU, acted as a bureaucratic arbitrator, some class-conscious rank-and-file regular workers wholeheartedly supported the strike and organized solidarity actions from below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the irregular workers\u2019 strike ended with no results, years of negotiations followed. The company proposed to hire some of the subcontracted workers as new regular workers. Unfortunately, the irregular workers’ unions fell into the trap of demanding the prior hiring of union members, which meant giving up the main demand of regularizing all the subcontracted workers. After years of negotiations, about 10,000 subcontracted workers at HMC were hired as new regular workers. However, a significant number of irregular workers still remain at HMC, especially in the form of temporary workers. The retreat of the irregular workers\u2019 unions at HMC was partly due to the fact that they were surrounded by already bureaucratized regular workers\u2019 unions. As a result, although the 14-year struggles of the irregular workers\u2019 unions in HMC achieved considerable economic gains, the revolutionary socialists who intervened in these struggles failed to achieve their goals of building new class-conscious strongholds in the irregular workers\u2019 unions, against the tendency of the regular workers\u2019 union to become more and more stuck in a state of labor aristocracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2016, when the struggles of irregular workers\u2019 unions inside HMC were coming to an end, the revolutionary socialists began to intervene in a new unionization of some irregular workers who do auto parts feeding outside HMC. Previously, their work was done by regular workers inside HMC. But, as a result of continuous outsourcing for more than 10 years, there were about 3,000 workers doing the work in 30 other small companies near HMC. The unionization of these workers began with the organization of 180 workers in one company. After a year of fierce struggle, including the closure of the factory, the workers finally won union recognition. Since then, the wave of unionization has continued to spread to workers in other small companies. The union, the Ulsan Hyundai Glovis Union, now has about 1,600 members. The union has repeatedly succeeded in turning temporary workers into permanent workers once they are organized by mobilizing the collective power of the union from below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In July this year, the union again organized several strikes to demand a wage increase and more rights for union activities in the workplaces. Especially on July 18, after their strike outside HMC disrupted production inside HMC for several hours, the bosses finally gave in to the union. This year, as in the previous four years, the regular workers’ union at HMC didn\u2019t organize any strike during the collective bargaining process. As a result, HMC faced its first production stoppage this year when the outsourced parts feeding workers outside the company went on strike.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is not yet obvious whether a new class-conscious stronghold can be built in and around the auto parts feeding workers\u2019 union. But one thing is obvious: some hope is growing among workers in and around the union. For example, the union is playing a leading role in various solidarity actions, climate justice protests, and pro-Palestinian protests in Ulsan. Some class-conscious rank-and-file regular workers inside HMC, now reduced to a very small minority, expressed solidarity with the strike of auto parts feeding workers outside HMC when their workplaces were disrupted by the strike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another important effort we are making to overcome the problem of irregular workers is to keep raising the necessity of organizing the KCTU general strike to raise the minimum wage and remove the legal obstacles to the right of irregular workers to unionize and strike. Such a general strike will be another important turning point for great progress in the history of the Korean workers’ movement and a major blow to the current right-wing government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As part of our efforts, on March 18 this year, at the KCTU delegate conference, a resolution was proposed by a supporter of the March to Socialism to build such a KCTU general strike in June 2024. The resolution received 315 votes out of 1002, so it did not pass. However, the fact that about 30 percent of the KCTU delegates supported the resolution showed that the possibility of building such a general strike in the near future is not impossible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The division between regular and irregular workers is also a gender division in the working class. South Korea has the widest gender pay gap in the OECD, at 31.2% in 2022, much higher than the OECD average of 12.1%. The irregular female workers received only 38.8% of the wages of the regular male workers. The fact that career interruptions due to pregnancy, childbirth, and childcare force most women to become irregular workers is one of the main reasons for the widest gender pay gap. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So we have been trying to build women\u2019s strikes to overcome the gender division and the problem of irregular workers. And on March 8 of this year, there was the first women’s strike in South Korea. Of course, it was very small with only 800 participants. However, two unions organized a real strike, and many women workers stopped work to join the rally. 41 organizations, including women-centered unions, feminist groups, LGBTQ+ groups, student organizations, and various social movement groups, also participated in the rally.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The women’s strike this year raised five demands, such as closing the gender pay gap, raising the minimum wage, ensuring labor rights for all, including job security and the elimination of irregular work, introducing health insurance coverage and miscarriage induction for pregnancy termination, and making care more public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On August 17, there was a big solidarity rally attended by thousands of workers and people from all over the country to support the families of the victims of the Aricell fire. And the union at Samsung Electronics officially participated in the rally. It was the first time the union had expressed solidarity with the victims or their families. This is a good sign of change, but still too little. Like other regular workers and their unions in large companies, it won\u2019t be easy for the workers and their union at Samsung Electronics to overcome the state of labor aristocracy and go further to build the class-conscious unity between regular and irregular workers. But it is the only way for the working class in South Korea to advance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In conclusion, we, the revolutionary socialists in South Korea, will continue to try to play a leading role in building the class-conscious unity between regular workers in large companies and irregular workers in small and medium companies, based on the initiative of rank-and-file militant workers, combining the strategy of workers\u2019 self-organization and workers\u2019 hegemony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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The Strike at Samsung Electronics The National Samsung Electronics Union (NSEU), one of the five unions at Samsung Electronics in South Korea, began its strike on July 8 of this year, for the first time in the company\u2019s 55-year history. The union organizes about 32,000 workers, around 25% of the Samsung Electronics workforce. The strike […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":616,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"crp_sub_category":"South Korea","crp_read_time":"","crp_featured":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,83,51],"tags":[98,23,97,7],"coauthors":[92],"class_list":["post-614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-asia","category-south-korea","category-working-class-politics","tag-hyundai","tag-labor","tag-samsung","tag-south-korea"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n