All Resources in South Korea

Peter Wad

Hong Yoonkyung and Kim Aehwa

This dispute is complicated by the way the company divides and rules the workforce using a variety of hiring/contractual systems; similarly this report is complicated by the English words used to describe each group. The chart below hopefully simplifies, defines, and standardises the confusion.

General Working Conditions

Long Working Hours

The current statutory working week is 44 hours. The real working hours in the immediate aftermath of the economic crisis and the IMF-prescribed loan declined slightly due to corporate structural adjustment and slump in the operational rate of facilities. However, from 1999, working hours increased again.

Dara O'Rourke

This is an edited version of Dara's full text, which can be found at http://web.mit.edu/dorourke/www/index.html

This report presents the first systematic public analysis of the code of conduct monitoring methods employed by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to inspect factory labour practices around the world. The author accompanied PwC auditors on factory inspections in China and Korea, and evaluated PwC's findings for a factory in Indonesia.

Introduction

Sunwoo Lee and In-Jae Lee

South Korea's economy has fallen into serious crisis since 1997 and is now under the control of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The current economic troubles were unexpected, but the causes seem to be rooted deep in the South Korean economic structure.

National Pension Plan

Issue No : 33 December 1999 - February 2000

Yu, Tae Hee

General Situation

Prostitute Women and Client Statistic

Contents

Feature: Labour Rights Under Attack

• Thai Workers in the IMF Era 2
• Philippines: Violation of the Right to Security of Tenure 8
• Japan: The Revised Labour Standards Law 11
• Globalisation and International Labour Standards 14
• Chinese Migrant Labourers in Macau 20

Action Alert

• Garment Workers in Thailand 22
• Striking Workers in Korea 24

May Day 1999

• Indonesia 25
• Taiwan 25
• Pakistan 26
• Hong Kong 26

Regional Roundup 27

Every year, according to the International Labour Organisation’s [ILO] estimates. over 220,000 workers die in workplace accidents. This trend is being exacerbated by the globalisation of the world’s economy. The ILO recently concluded that the “acceleration of globalisation and liberalisation in Asia had positive repercussions on the volume of jobs but not the quality.”

How much is it really going to cost?

Wait a Minute

Workers’ Roar

1997 came in with a roar...One of the celebrated “tigers” of Asia witnessed the biggest general strike in the past forty-five years. South Korea’s workers and other citizens’ fight against the new and restrictive labour law, has had a significant impact on the labour situation in South Korea, which has reverberated throughout the region.

No More Toying with Workers’ Rights

Pains and Gains

EPZs are viewed as union-free zones where workers are exploited and their rights to organise are brutally trampled. But the situation for EPZ workers cannot be truly understood if analysed in isolation of family, society, and the global marketplace. Conditions in the EPZs are a reflection and magnification of universal class and gender problems. Even though women are undervalued in the labour force, their families, governments, and employers benefit from and depend on their low cost (and often free) labour inside and outside the home.

The Migrant Worker Dilemma

Thousands of South Asians and Southeast Asians pour into Japan and the newly industrialized countries (NICs) in search of work each year. Labour migration is a world phenomenon, but national governments have failed to respond and even people's movements have not formulated coherent perspectives and agendas.

Hazards of Industry

Almost a decade ago, thousands of people died painful deaths when the Union Carbide pesticide factory in Bhopal leaked poisonous gas. The death toll in the world’s worst industrial disaster has reached 16,000 people while half a million more were stricken with incurable illnesses.