South Korea

textile workers fighting for their rights

 

(From Voices, November 1977, CCA-URM, Japan).

The textile industries of Asia, which once were the most locally-owned industrial sector, are rapidly being swallowed up by giant multinational companies, with results that are devastating.

According to one recent report*, some 32 companies-all based in the U.S., western Europe and Japan--now virtually control the production of fibers, textiles and garments for the entire nonsocialist world . In Asia, nine Japanese companies exercise almost a complete monopoly in textiles in South Korea, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Thailand and Taiwan, and are making rapid inroads in the Philippines, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan. British, American and German companies own most of the balance.

The impact is sizeable in every country . In Indonesia, for example, Japanese investment in textiles during 1967-76 led to the bankruptcy of 50,000 local small-scale textile producers and the decline of workforce in textiles from 650,000 to 530,000-- a loss of 220,000 jobs. Changes in technology and the use of man-made rather than natural fibers has also made the Indonesian textile industry heavily dependent on Japanese imports of fiber, and at a time when the oil crisis has caused the cost of these materials to skyrocket.

Because of massive unemployment and political repression, Asia has become the sweat-shop of the developed world. Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea are the three largest exporters of textiles to Japan and the West, but the control of these export-oriented industries is all outside those nations. Prices and import quotas are set in Europe and the U.S. by the same companies that have closed out production in their own base and moved to Asia to acquire cheap and controllable labor. The countries of Asia have been put into competition with each other to keep labor costs minimal and to inhibit unionization . When the workers in Asia resist the semi-slave conditions under which they work, local managers of the MNCs respond by threatening to shift production elsewhere, while local governments react to this threat by crushing workers' struggles with military and police power, In the midst of "rapid economic development", the plight of workers remains unchanged. 

• Brian Bolton, The MNCs in the Textile, Garment and Leather Industries, published by International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers' Federation, 1976.

March 28, 1978

Dear Friends :

Women workers have been very active in Korea during the last  more than ten years. Throughout this period they have been highly motivated and determined to fight through for their rights. Within the so-called export industries, including textiles, women workers constitute by far the majority , earning foreign reserve for the nation . But they are the most exploited sector of the industrial community, and are not supported even by male workers in the same factory.

The Dong-II Textile Company in Inchon, near Seoul, has had 1,000-plus employees since the earlier 1970s, more than 85 percent of whom have been women, mostly in their teens and early twenties. In 1972, through long-term educational and organizing efforts, the women workers in that factory were able to elect women (fellow workers) as the president and officers of their branch union. That was a glorious moment in the history of the labor movement in Korea , when for the first time women workers came into the leadership of a branch union. But for the members of that union, particularly the women, that was the beginning of a long process of suffering. For a series of interference, harassment and intimidation was launched from that moment against the women by the management, the male workers, and also the authorities.

In 1976 they experienced a major confrontation, which concluded by more than seventy women being detained and three hundred dismissed from their jobs. Two of those women have still not recovered from their state of shock.

And in February this year another wave of attack has threatened their basic rights. This time, organized gangsters have brutally attacked them, even spreading excrement all over them and their union office. 

About sixty workers from this branch union began a fast on March 10, Korean Labor Day, which is still being carried on at the time of this writing. This fast has been joined by several UIM workers as well. The heads of the Korean NCC and member churches have issued a statement protesting this incident, and about twenty full-time UIM workers also fasted during the past week in protest.

The cries and pleas of the members of this branch union reached this office some time ago, and we are enclosing relevant documents for your use. In this "development era", and under the fanfare of "economic growth", such inhumane practices have still taken place. We find no court in which this appeal can be filed, but ask solidarity support from friends like you.

Do raise this question with the Korean representative in your city or nation, and do your best to make an appeal on behalf of the Dong-I I workers to any national or international media or institution, in order to make the cries of these women heard. 

Thanking you on their behalf,

 CCA-URM

OUTCRIES OF THE POOR WORKERS

On February 6, 1971 women workers from Dong-II Textile Company in Inchon, South Korea held a meeting with the support of several social organizations to evaluate their long, hard struggle against the inhumane treatment of the management and the indifference of the company-controlled trade union. The following is a full text of the appeal they made public at the meeting translated from the Japanese edition of the National Times (Minjok Shibo), March 25, 1971. Dong-II Textile is one of the leading textile companies in South Korea, is capitalized at 1.5 billion won (around US$ 15 million), and produces cotton yarn, blended yarn and cotton fabric mainly for export.

 Listen to us poor workers who only seek a decent living in the face of the indifference of society and the oppression of capitalists. We appeal to those who truly wish to see freedom and equality in this society to support us in our lonely struggle to distinguish righteousness from irrationality and to recover our human rights and strengthen the voices of criticism against those who trample us down, betray, deceive and despise us as ignorant.

As there were not just one or two workers among us who were treated unfairly, we united in spite of the uncertainties, to demand our rights and to denounce the evils of society.

We, the workers of Dong-II Textile Company in Inchon, South Korea, were deeply hurt by the cunning policy of the company to transform our union into the company's puppet union at the time of the election of the labor union delegates one year ago.

Our life in the factory is really miserable. Ours is a confined, stifling existence on the job -- prohibited from talking to the workers next to us, poorly fed, not allowed to even go to toilet when necessary. The company side oppresses us by intervening in our personal lives. After work is over, we are not free to take part in club activities which were originally set up for us. We are endlessly plagued by lung tuberculosis, athlete's foot, and various stomach diseases. Women workers have yellow, swollen faces from inadequate sunlight. We were· also tormented by temperatures of 40 (Centigrade) degrees and by dust. We are harassed by the close supervision and pressing demands of the company. Those who are active in union activities are oppressed. We are struggling to free ourselves from these miserable conditions which are too many to enumerate.

In 1972, in spite of all the obstructions of the company, we elected a woman chairman of our labor union and formed an executive for a true union for workers, something unprecedented in this country. We took pride in our union. In 1975, we again elected a woman chairman. But in 1976 the company intervened in the election of delegates and kept at us with threats and reprisals. Mobilizing anti-union elements, the company itself recommended persons it could control, used them to abort the annual congress, and forced members during work hours to sign up to support the anti organization elements. On the other hand, the company harassed active members and delegates, suspended job assignments, changed sections and job positions. The company instigated male headmen to give trouble to the active members. Finally it forced the members to resign "voluntarily".

Prior to the congress, the company side, with the help of the anti-organization elements, kidnapped the delegates, and forcefully asked them to dismiss the congress. They used dirty methods to prevent members and delegates from attending the congress. But those delegates who wanted to get ahead in the company were supported by the  company, given alcohol, money and clothes; the company arranged for active delegates to take care of their families. The former took the latter to hotels overnight and ordered them to do what the company said. They used to use violent, intimidating language and action to the women union officials. On the pretext of the congress, they excused members from work and took them out on a picnic thus aborting the congress. These people are puppets who are indifferent to the pains of workers! We were determined not to let our union fall to those puppets. We could not retreat after six months of oppression by the company and its schemes to suppress the labor union.

On 23 July last year ( 1976), the company nailed up the door of the dormitory and closed the gate of the company so that members of the union could not move at all, and police took away the chair person. All these movements were to railroad the congress and make sure only anti-organization elements would be there. We staged a sit-in and protested the cruelty of the company. We continued a hunger strike for three days in the heat of mid-summer until our throats were dried up and our stomachs aching with hunger. We collapsed. Our water line was cut. We felt ourselves losing consciousness. 

 From outside, our parents and fellow members tried to bring in water and ice cubes. But the guardsmen of the company knocked them down, kicked old parents and dragged them around, used abusive language and called them idiots. On the evening of the 25th, our parents staged a sit-in outside the company to protest. Then barbed wire was put up between our parents and us. Workers in blue fatigues fell and rolled on the ground and some of us continued shouting slogans unceasingly for three days .

We were completely exhausted. Police rushed into the company with a truck to disperse the struggle. We were determined to protest and not to be taken away. We took off our clothes and were half-naked. We sang the union song, our clothes in our hands. Even now we feel that song echoing in our hearts.

Though guardsmen, police and other company employees beat us with police clubs, trampled us, dragged us by the hair, and pushed us into a truck, we broke windows to try to free ourselves. We crept under the truck to stop it, but we were kicked and lost consciousness. 72 of us were taken to the police station, and over 50 out of those 72 lost consciousness; 14 were taken to hospital. We were beaten and bruised all over. Two who were taken to hospital did not recover consciousness. Over 200 members rushed to the police station to demand that all the arrested be released, and over 300 people went to the headquarters of the Seoul Textile Labor Union to request them to release us.

Ms. Lee Soon Ok, one of the two who were hospitalized at  Seoul Sacred Mother (Sung Mo) Hospital, was found to be suffering from mental disease and her very life was in danger. Sook Ok was hospitalized later, in Yoido Mental Hospital. Ms. Lee Ton Hee was released after twenty days' treatment, stating resolutely that she would continue union activities She continued sitting on the sofa at the office of the labor union for more than two months. After the sit-in struggle, the company pressured active members to resign from the company or to write a statement they would not participate any more; several hundred members were fired from the company.

News of our bloody struggle reached many people. At the Congress of the Central Committee on 29 July, the present chairman, Kim Yung Tae proposed and got passed a resolution of no-confidence in the former chairman of our union, Bang Soon Cho, for his poor handling of the incident at the Dong-II Textile Company. At that time he put on a big show of concern for the cause of t he workers of Dong-II Textile Company and loudly promised to solve their problems if he were reelected. He was elected chairman of the union .

We requested the floor of the congress to solve the present problem immediately and quickly elect delegates and announce a new congress. We asked this because chairman Bang had promised to do this when we were taken to the police station. But the new executives did not listen to our demands and only put off solution of our problem.

We endured and waited. On 5 November the headquarters sent Lee Poong Woo, an executive of the planning board, as chairman of the coordinating committee. We entrusted all authority to him, believing in the good faith of the headquarters, and simply waited for the day of the election of delegates. But to our surprise, opinion at headquarters was to oppress us and to renew agreement (between labor union and the company) to allow the puppet employees membership in the union on the pretext of improving the quality of the labor union .

We immediately opposed this. Under the present situation, allowing the puppet employees into the union would be to give our union to the company. Therefore we opposed renewal of the agreement. But the headquarters used a deceptive policy of saying that they were in the process of negotiations, and that they would listen to our opinion. They ordered us not to look through the documents sent to the labor union. 

 We were furious when we read the official notice from Kyunggi-do dated the 25th of December, which proclaimed that the Governor of Kyonggi-do gave his consent to the renewal of the collective agreement between us and the company which Lee Poong Woo, Director of the Planning Office, concluded as of the 24th of November at his own discretion . Inflamed with anger, we rushed to the Union Headquarters to see the chairman, only to be still more deeply disappointed .

We did our best to contain our anger and asked him for full particulars of t he incident, but he replied in disgustingly violent language: "What sort of women are you, who prefer labor movement to marriage? You are simply mesmerized now. That's why you are fooling around like this". He even started to trim his nails as if he had no interest in continuing the talk with us. Pak Ki -Yang, Director of the Seoul Chapter of Clothing Workers' Union who was in the office, pounded on the desk and shouted at us blaming us for any lack of education : " Tell me, what on earth do you know that makes you feel qualified to make a big fuss like this?"

We are certainly uneducated. Deprived of a chance to study because of poverty, we have been despised and belittled as ignorant by society. We have been paying our union dues to the Headquarters out of our hard-earned , meager wages in an effort to gain whatever little intelligence becomes human beings. However, the very people who promised to work for us and make good use of the money looked down upon us saying that we are ignorant. We seriously wonder if the Chairman of the Textile Workers' Union is really worthy of being called a leader of a labor union, for this man while boasting of the large union membership of 150,000, looks down upon us female workers who make up more than 80 per cent of the membership and on whom he depends for most of his livelihood. How can this be? Not only that, he even appointed company employees, the management's instruments, as directors of chapters, insisted on dividing the standing executive committee members equally between the management's yes men and ordinary union members, resorted to a measure of cooptation to forcibly carry through elections, and made a remark that workers should be content with an increase in wages and should abstain from talking about workers' rights or human rights. We have been denied free access to the office at the Headquarters of the Textile Workers' Union that was built with our own money, and have been deceived by union leaders who are supposed to represent and fight for our rights. Whom should we trust and whom should we count on for help from now on?

We have finally made up our mind to regain our rights with our own hands, pledging to each other that we will keep fighting till the day when those at the Union Headquarters who claim to be our colleagues finish solving the problem at issue. So far they have been deliberately postponing the solution of the problem, simply to make us weary of waiting and force us to give up hope.

Now the atmosphere in the workshop is extremely rough, due to the heavy surveillance mounted by the company and also to the "educational" program the sole purpose of which is to prevent union members from meeting their representatives.

In the interests of more than 1,300 workers of Dong-II Textile, and also of many other fellow female workers of the Textile Workers' Union, we are determined to expose the activities of the treacherous union leaders and denounce the management for its brutal measures of suppression. We are determined to do this at all costs.

After having been betrayed by the Union Headquarters, we issued an appeal demanding that the pains suffered by the workers should be properly compensated.Cavilling at a passage in the appeal -- "is it really justifiable to dispose of the rights of young female workers who fought at the risk of their lives as lightly as they did? Previously we only heard about a type of people called labor aristocrats, but now we have had a chance to see in person who they are:· -- the union leaders are unabashedly suing us for libel. Is this what union leaders are supposed to do? The four million workers of South Korea cannot but lament over these shameless activities of their leaders.

How is it possible for a sensible person to say that the leaders who have not even begun to reflect on their behavior are not labor aristocrats? Are we supposed to keep placing confidence in these leaders, who acted in sheer violation of Paragraph 3, Article 19 of the Labour Union Act which clearly stipulated that a collective agreement cannot be concluded without the prior consent of the general membership meeting or the board of representatives, and who act in disregard of and against the interests of the ordinary members? Are we supposed to leave these leaders to sit comfortably in their arm-chairs and trust them with the proper handling of our union dues? We have already had enough of suppression. We cannot and ought not tolerate any more of it. We believe we should gather all our strength and energy left, and cry out in one huge voice of assertion that we, too, are human beings.

lately, those in the Headquarters are trying to coopt and bribe our own leaders, and thereby to drive a wedge in our movement. They reign over the executive positions as they like, arbitrarily appointing this person as the Chief of the General Affairs Section, and that person as the Director of a chapter. A person who does not comply with such an appointment is immediately accused of having called them labor aristocrats and is threatened with expulsion from membership on the trumped-up charge of defamation.

Do you really think that we -- who are determined, for the sake of conscience and responsibility, to fight to see the day when the problem at issue is completely dissolved, even at the cost of receiving cold treatment which is much colder than the midnight skies of 15-16 degrees centigrade below freezing -- are a bunch of mesmerized female workers as they claim we are?

Is it true women are better off getting married and staying home? That we should not take part in the labor movement?

Is it true that our Union will really improve in "quality" if we let company employees, the management's yes-men, join our Union?

All that we want is to live as human beings. Poor and uneducated as we are, we learned through our labor union activities what democracy should be like.

Is there anything wrong with our understanding that it is an obligation of every human being to remain true to one's conscience and refuse to submit to injustice? And what about our determination to keep fighting through to the end?

Let us leave these questions to your sound judgment. And please let us enlist your heartfelt support and sympathy in our cause.

Reprinted from:
The Asian Women's Liberation Newsletter
c/o Goto Masako
147 Kenju-kosha, 112 Sakuragaoka
Hodogaya-ku, Yokonama-shi
Kanagawa-ken, Japan

VIOLATION OF OUR HUMAN RIGHTS

On February 21, 1978, at the Dong-II Textile factory (located at Mansuk-dong, East Inchon, Korea) gangsters with orders to disrupt and destroy our labor union threw human excrement on us. Not only did they throw it on us, but they wore rubber gloves and rubbed it in our faces, eyes, ears, mouths, and on our clothes. As if this deplorable action were not enough, they grabbed us by the hair, kicked us, and even in some cases bit us.

Our labor union was the first in Korea in 1972 to elect a female worker as a chairperson for the local chapter of the National Textile Workers Union . Our labor union has been looked upon as representative of a true union by other workers. Since then, we have carried out the activities for our labor union with a considerable degree of oppression and suffering.

Since the election of union officers in February, 1976, it has become disclosed to us that the company has attempted to buy off a few workers to destroy our labor union. While trying to live as decent people we have had to endure surveillance, abuses, and various kinds of punishment from the company and authorities. During one issue in which a struggle resulted, 72 of us were arrested , about 50 fainted and lost consciousness, while 14 had to be hospitalized. That is how intense some of our struggles have been to protect our labor union.

Yet during such struggles, the attitude of the main office of the National Textile Workers Union has been strange. The higher union officials have said that the issues concerning our local chapter cannot be solved. Pang Soon Cho was pushed out from the position of chairperson at the main office and a Kim Young Tae took over that position. Mr. Kim has had that position for three years and still has not done anything to help us with our problems.

February 21 was the day for electing our union officials at our 1978 annual general meeting of our local chapter. On that day Park Pok Nye, who is in the favor of the company and a candidate for the chair position of the local chapter, passed out literature criticizing the participation of workers in the Protestant Urban Industrial Mission and the Catholic Young Christian Workers. These pamphlets called these mission groups Red organizations and the company took no measures to stop this person from passing out such literature at the factory site.

On this day when the elections were to be held and the gangsters appeared smearing human excrement all over us and destroying the ballot boxes, Park Pok Nye was giving orders to the gangsters and singling out workers, yelling, "Make her eat it!"

We asked the police, who were already mobilized and standing by, to help but all they did was curse us saying, "Shut up you vulgar girls or else we'll get you later!" ls this what law and order means in the Republic of Korea?

About 70 of us were injured . One worker was thrown through a glass window. Her hand required about seven stitches.

On the next day, February 22, the main office of the National Textile workers Union held an emergency committee meeting. This committee then issued an order that the present chairperson of the local union, Lee Chong Kak, and the candidate favored by the company, Park Pok Nye, must write and sign a statement promising that the local chapter would not deal with the present issue but defer to the National Union. Of course the local chapter rejected this order. As soon as the local chapter rejected this order the main office of the Union put a sign on the company bulletin board saying that it was going to send in a "trouble shooter".

In the midst of this kind of a situation our human rights are being violated for the sake of the government's 10 billion dollar export goal. When we must eat human excrement, then we feel we are a far cry from the $1,000 per capita income (promised by the government by 1980, but expected to be reached next year).

Such a story as mentioned above is the pain and sadness which workers face in Korea. But we will not quit and will keep working and struggling until we are victorious.

February, 1978
Labor Union Members of the Local
Chapter of the National Textile
Labor Union at the Dong-II Co. in
Inchon, Korea

RESOURCES

Interviews With Young Working Women in Seoul Barbara Mintz Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch CPO Box 255, Seoul 100 Korea
in: Virtues in Conflict: Tradition and the Korean Woman

Today

Sandra Matielli, editor; chapter 9 21 pages, 1977 (from Women's Work Is .. .)

The twenty single women, ages 16-28, whom Barbara Mintz interviewed in the factories, shops and tearooms of Seoul, have an overriding concern: not to be looked down upon or classified (as a 24-year-old drinking house waitress put it) "as a different kind of human being". Most think about their futures in terms of marriage and children; it is principally the slightly older women with professional jobs who seem to question traditional marriage norms and to prefer having no  man to having an oppressive one. In these women, Mintz finds a striking "independence of mind" which signals a change in the worr:ien 's self-image from that traditional to Korea's Confucian society. The women interviewed were members of Urban-Industrial Mission and the Ch'onggyech' or Garment Worker's Labor Union.

Asian Women's Liberation, Asian Women's Liberation Committee in Japan c/o Goto Masako 147 Kenju-Kosha, 112 Sakuragaoka Hodogaya-Ku, Yokohama-Shi, Kanagawa-Ken, Japan n. 1, May, 1977

A booklet containing a Korean Declaration of Workers' Human Rights, and articles about Korean textile workers, electronics assembly workers, and workers at Japanese owned plants in Thailand.

 INFO, YCW International Service D'lnformation - JOCI 26 rue Juste Lipse 1040 Bruxelles, Belgium Issue 7, 1975 

This 18-page mimeo report is devoted to "Workers in the Textile-Clothing Industry". It is cross-national, including France and Australia as well as Korea and a number of other Asian countries. Though it does not deal specifically with women workers, it does give a good picture of the industry as a whole.

Voices, CCA-URM 2-3-18 Nishi-Waseda  Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160, Japan N. 5, March 1978

This issue of the monthly newsletter, published by the Christian Conference of Asia, Urban Rural Mission in Tokyo contains articles on the suppression of the union movement at the Inchon Factory of the Dong-I I Textile Co. of Korea and an example of a booklet forceably distributed among Korean workers which charges any significant labor movement, as well as UIM's supportive role, as being 'communist activities'.

Free Trade Zones and Industrialization of Asia, Special issue of AMPO: Japan-Asia Quarterly Review Pacific-Asia Resources Center P.O. Box 5250 Tokyo International, Japan

A thorough, well documented work on free trade zones, export-oriented industrialization patterns and the legal and economic bases and effects of foreign companies in Asia. This is a rather technical book, but as a background to the study of women workers in Asia, can provide some invaluable date.

A Letter From Church Women in Korea, Kong Duk Kwee in: Japan Christian Activity News, NCCJ 3-18 Nishiwaseda, 2-chome Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160, Japan 2 pages; March 10, 1978 (from Women's Work Is ... )

Church Women United in Korea, in a letter to the Women's Committee of the National Christian Council of Japan, decries the conditions of Korean workers in foreign owned factories ... Three requests are made to Japanese women: 1) Their support for the struggle of Korean workers at the Japanese-owned Pang Rim textile factory; 2) their efforts towards severing the economic connections between Korea and Japan; and 3) withdrawal of all Japanese corporations from Korea and an end to "sex hunting tourism by Japanese men". (The Pang Rim company, known as Sakamoto Boseki in Japan, moved to South Korea in 1958 after a union was organized among the workers. The plant in Osaka is now closed, and 600 workers have been fighting for their delayed compensation for four years).

Signetics Korea, Ed Kinchley Quaker International Affairs Program - East Asia Sendagaya Apartments, Room 606 9-9 Senagaya 1-chome Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 151, Japan 4 pages; September 15, 1977 (from Women's Work Is ... )

Over 3000 workers in a South Korean American-based electronics factory, Signetics Korea, went on a hunger strike in mid-August (1977) demanding a 46.8 percent wage increase. At the time the workers there made an average of 39 cents an hour, but the company would only offer a 12-14 percent increase. Since striking is illegal under the present government structure, the workers continued to work their shifts taking turns at carrying on a continuous sit-in at the cafeteria where they sang, made speeches, and refused to eat. The final contract negotiations, completed in late August, gave the workers a 23 percent wage increase ...

Tae Hyup Limited, Yong Dong Po Urban Industrial Mission 4 pages; September 1977

 Tae Hyup Limited, South Korean Manufacturer of several Mattel toys (such as the Marie Osmond, Hawaiian Barbi and Malibu Skipper dolls) has notified its employees that between 500 and 800 workers will be fired sometime in the future . The reason given is that because of labor unrest last June, Mattel has given their orders to a Philippine factory . The 'unrest' was the result of workers demonstrating against poor wages ($1 .10 a day). compulsory overtime, and unhealthy working conditions. To date, 1000 union members have resigned in protest of company control of the union. There has been no wage increase as promised, and changing and medical facilities remain as they were, inadequate. There is concern over whether the claim that Mattel has shifted orders to the Philippines is an intimidation tactic of the Tae Hyup management. Whatever the motivation, workers' jobs at Tae Hyup are at stake .

APPEALS FROM WOMEN WORKERS IN KOREA

(from Women's Work Is ... )

Appeal by Namyeong Nylon Campany Workers, Yong Dong Po Factory; Covering Letter June 21, 1977 (I CU IS n. 3495)

The plight of the workers of Namyeong Nylon Company is detailed in this appeal for eleven women who were jailed for protesting their working conditions. The company makes women's underwear, swimwear, and stockings for the US market ("Mold" and "Vivian" bras, "All In One Girdles", "Non-run" and "Pandora" stockings). Skilled workers receive $1.75 daily; those with six years experience receive $2.15 daily. After being shared with parents and younger brothers and sisters, the monthly wage of $43.75 to $50.00 hardly covers the woman worker's living costs. On May 7 when 700 workers from the finishing department asked for wage adjustments, the riot police were sent in to break up their demonstration. The women persisted in seeking a fair wage increase again on May 18. This time the company union's officials kicked and choked the women while the police watched. Eleven of the women were sentenced to 15 to 20 days in detention. The 11 women were finally reinstated after pledging cooperation with the management. The wage issue is still unresolved. Persons in other countries are asked to write letters to the company in support of the women: Nam Yeong Nylon, President Kim Jae Shik Moon Lei Dong, 5 ga number 13, Yong Dong Po  Seoul, Korea

The Taehyup Factory Workers Appeal, June 10, 1977 (ICUIS n. 3497)

The Taehyup Factory (Mattel Toy Company's Korean affiliate) workers tell about the day in August 1976 when the management walked into the workers' cafeteria and formed a union by selecting some workers to be union representatives. Dues are deducted monthly, but nobody knows what the money is used for. On May 25, the company announced over the loudspeaker that the election of union officials would be held in 30 minutes. The company submitted its candidates for election. The Taehyup workers in this appeal ask to be treated like adults. They ask that the truth be told about wages in South Korea. Korean TV says that workers earn $100 monthly. But Taehyup workers, after seven years, receive $66, not $100. Even these high-paid workers cannot save from their earnings; it is much more difficult for workers with less than two years experience, who receive between $30 and $40 monthly. The workers point out wage discrimination between workers, particularly when the managers take a liking to a 'pretty' worker. The workers list the problems which deter good relations between workers and managers.

Pangrim Workers Appeal for Help, June 8, 1977 (ICUIS n. 3496)

Pangrim Textile Company, which employs 6000 workers, mostly women, is considered one of South Korea's pioneer spinning and weaving mills. In 1976 it made a net profit of $16 million which by Korean standards is a good record. Behind the profit record, however, is much pain and agony for Pangrim workers. The women workers put in long hours far beyond an eight hour shift. They are expected to arrive early and leave late. "If for some reason a worker comes at the scheduled starting time (i.e., 30-60 minutes late), then the foreman and the lead girl worker give her a hard time. From that time on, the work for this girl is harder and the increasing pressure means that she will eventually leave ... We do not receive a weekly holiday. We work continuously throughout the year with only some of the public holidays off. When special holidays come we want to visit our parents, but we must stay in Seoul by our machines. It is a crime that workers cannot fulfill their traditional filial duty to their parents". In order to keep awake on the job, the women take "Timing"; some of them have become addicts. When one woman fell asleep on the job, she was beaten and shaken with no interference from the company. The workers are asking for support to help them: 1) get back wages for overtime they have been coerced into doing; 2) get one day off a week and the other holidays prescribed by the Korean labor law; 3) not have to come to work 30-40 minutes early each day; and 4) stop the company's intimidation of workers and 
those who stand up for their rights. Write to : The Pangrim Company, President Kim Kyu Seung 3 Ka 54, Moon Re Dong, Young Dong Po Ku Seoul, Korea