Interview with Dan Byung-ho

BY STIG JUTTERSTRÖM Dan Byung-ho is sitting in front of his desk at the KCTU headquarters in Seoul. He wears a red-checked shirt, a blue jacket and light cotton trousers. His has lines in his forehead, his eyes are wise and his smile is warm. Question: When did you for the first time become a trade union activist? Answer: In 1987. I was working for Dong-ah Construction Company, at a plant which made equipment for the construction industry. Working conditions were absolutely dreadful. Working hours were very long and wages so low that I decided to take the initiative to increase the workers' rights and improve their working conditions. Since there wasn't a trade union, I decided to start one. Q: How did your colleagues among the metalworkers react to that? A: It wasn't easy, because it hasn't been freely permitted to start trade unions. The company had 770 employees, and 30 of us workers secretly formed our trade union. After a month we went public and told the others that we were going to start a union. 300 joined, which was a pretty good result. Q: And how did management react when the workers joined the union? A: Their reaction was severe. Our employer threatened the workers and tried to persuade them not to join the union. He refused to recognise the union's right to represent the workers. But after 50 days we went on strike for our demand to get the union recognised, for the right to negotiate and for higher wages. Q: This must have been an illegal strike. What happened then? A: Every worker joined the strike, which lasted a week. Our employer gave up and recognised the right of the union to represent the workers, the union's negotiating rights, and our rights for higher wages. It was a total victory. Q: You were released from prison in August last year. When were you first arrested? A: In April 1989. During the spring of 1988, I had organised a strike for higher wages, and I started to understand that the opportunity to fight for trade union rights in one single company was fairly limited. We had to cooperate with other unions. So I took the initiative of first setting up the Seoul Regional Council of Trade Unions, and towards the end of the year, the National Council of Trade Union Representatives, which was a committee with representatives of trade unions from all over the country. The government felt threatened when they understood that the workers were beginning to cooperate nationally, and my name got on the wanted list. I managed to remain in hiding for four months by travelling all over the country with the help of my friends. But one evening, after a meeting with trade union activists, the security police turned up and arrested me straight after the meeting. I was condemned to 18 months in jail, but was freed after five months. Q: This was just the beginning. How many times have you been arrested? A: Four times, for a total of four years and six months. I have also been on the wanted list four times, for about four to five years in all. Q: How were you treated? Was it a very hard time? A: I wasn't repressed and it wasn't a particularly difficult time. It was useful time. The hardest thing was the loneliness and being away from my family, my wife and two children. They were only eight and four years old the first time I was jailed. I remained active all the while in prison, doing physical exercises for an hour a day, writing letters, studying, reading books about the trade union movement and planning for the future. I was able to use that time in prison by making it useful. Q: So you could read books. Were there any restrictions on your reading matter? A: (Dan Byung-ho smiled and walked over to the bookshelf to collect a book.) At first it was forbidden to read certain newspapers and books. You were only allowed to read harmless things. But I was able to read many other things, as my friends stuck pages from forbidden works inside the covers of books the jailers approved of. They only looked at the covers and checked the author's name. Q: Were there any common features behind all the arrests? A: Yes, there were. Each time I have tried to launch a new organisation to widen and strengthen trade union collaboration, I was arrested. When I was taken into custody in 1989, I had started a country-wide cooperation committee. I was arrested in February 1991 for trying to initiate the National Workers' Association. I was put on the wanted list in June 1993 for two years for starting the Korean Council of Trade Union Representatives, which was a predecessor of the present KCTU. While I was hiding from the security police, I worked on initiating the present KCTU. When that was done in June 1995, I was immediately put in prison. I was let out in 1996 and began working to get three metalworkers' unions -- the Hyundai Workers' Unions, the Korean Federation of Metalworkers' Unions, and the Korean Automobile Workers' Federation -- to join together in the present Korean Metal Workers' Federation (KMWF). It worked, but I was arrested again. I was actually elected president of the newly-formed metalworkers' union in February 1998 while I was still in jail. I was taken into custody again in October 1998 and released in August 1999. In September that year I was elected president of the KCTU. Q: Do you think that October 1998 was the last time you were jailed? A: It is not at all impossible that I will be detained again. The government of South Korea has many options if it wants to limit the trade union movement's activities. I still have two months left of my latest sentence which I haven't served, which in turn meant I was not allowed to vote in the parliamentary elections on April 13 this year. And it means that the government can have me put in custody if they feel threatened by what I and the KCTU are doing. Q: There are two competing national trade union centres in South Korea, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions and the Federation of Korean Trade Unions. What are the industrial and political differences between them? A: There are many differences, but I will mention the principal ones. First of all, they were started in completely different ways. The FKTU was started over 50 years ago by the country's president at the time, in order to control the labour movement. The KCTU emerged as a result of the great workers' struggle in 1987; this was an explosive protest against the government's attempt to control the workers. Secondly, they operate very differently. The KCTU is based on the idea that all workers should have the right to participate in the work of their unions at the company level. Decisions are based on debates from below, which every member has the right to take part in. We work democratically, whilst the FKTU operates bureaucratically. Thirdly, we confront the employers and the government very differently. We try to meet the workers' demands through trade union struggle and strikes. The FKTU is more inclined to negotiate and compromise with the employers and the government. Fourthly, there are political differences. In South Korea there are no conservative parties on the one hand, and progressive parties on the other, as in other countries. There are virtually only conservative politicians. We are backing attempts to build a progressive, independent labour party which will represent the interests of the workers. But the FKTU does not agree with that. Q: Do you think you will manage to get one national trade union centre within a reasonable time? A: I cannot answer that question. It is important to have just the one confederation in a country, but it is impossible to say when South Korea will have one. Q: Are there any chances of really establishing a South Korean labour party based on the trade union movement, as in many European countries? A: The KCTU's attempts at starting a labour party began in 1997 with its decision to form an independent workers' party. The first president of the KCTU, Kwon Young-kil, put his name forward in the 1997 presidential elections, and in this year's parliamentary elections 10 of the labour party's candidates were from the KCTU. But we are just in the initial phase of a process which will take some time. Q: Your critics say the KCTU is too militant. What have you to say about that? A: Yes, I have heard it said that we are militant; this includes some foreigners who say so. We use that word in Korea too, but you have to understand the background. The massive 1987 strike was aimed at the repression of workers by the military dictatorship and the employers. They refused to recognise a democratic, independent trade union movement. The employers did all they could to keep the workers down. It was necessary to fight and to lead a militant struggle to defend democracy and workers' rights at the workplace. Don't forget that the workers are still suffering under appalling working conditions, the longest working hours and lowest wages. Without a struggle they cannot obtain what they are demanding. Under such circumstances you have to be militant. Only last year, after a history of many battles, was the KCTU given legal status. Q: President Kim Dae-jung has a positive image with many Westerners. What do you think about his policies? A: Korean workers don't consider him to be a positive figure. Although he is called the "human rights president" in some Western countries, he certainly isn't. The number of workers jailed in his first three years in office has been greater than that of the previous president's total four-year term. He is an oppressor, not a human rights president. And his economic policies have brought a great deal of suffering to the workers. He accepted the programme of the International Monetary Fund without taking any account of it. It led to mass sackings and made the rich richer and the poor poorer. 80 per cent of the population is working for the remaining 20 per cent. Nor has he reformed the chaebols, the South Korean family conglomerates. The five largest have become even wealthier since "the IMF crisis." Q: What is your opinion on Kim Dae-jung's so-called "sunshine" policy, the purpose of which is to normalise the relations between the two Koreas? A: The Kim Dae-jung government does not consider North Korea as an antagonistic counterpart of South Korea, which is positive. But in reality, the "sunshine" policy pursues economic advantages and interests. It is not representing the unification of people living in North and South Korea, but the economic interests of the corporations. The "sunshine" policy allows South Korean companies to do business in North Korea. Q: When will there be unification between the two Koreas? A: I'm not sure. Unification could become a reality later on, but it has been 50 years since the division, and this situation hinders national development. The longer this situation lasts, the more difficult unification will be. The possibilities for Korean unification depend on extending the exchange of contacts between the people in the two countries, and here the role of the workers is very important. The soccer games in 1999 between the two teams from trade unions in North Korea and South Korea represent one example of the role the workers can play. Q: How important is the "Reinstate the Sammi Speciality Steel Workers' Campaign"? A: When the Pohang Steel Corporation took over Sammi Speciality Steel Industry, they also took over the Sammi customers and continued doing business with them. So they also have an obligation to take over all the workers. It was illegal to sack the 580 workers, which all the courts have so far agreed with. But Pohang refuses to accept the courts' verdicts. It is very important for the Sammi workers to be reinstated. An increasing number of foreign companies are investing in South Korea. It is absolutely vital for the KCTU to help the Sammi workers win their case in order to stop other employers from doing the same thing. The support they have received from trade unions in other countries has been invaluable. Note: METAL WORLD also asked for an interview with Park In-sang, former president of the Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU) and the Federation of Korean Metalworkers' Trade Unions (FKMTU), but at that time he was busy with his campaign to run for Parliament.