KCTU Industrial Union Attacking Its Own Employer

At gatherings of workers attacking the very companies they work for, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) plays a central role. Why is the KCTU so closely involved in attacking businesses? The fundamental reason lies in its political ideology and its methods of struggle. Because it follows an ideology of building its own world through conflict and adopts industrial unions as its operating principle, it has come to treat companies as enemies and place itself at the forefront of anti-business struggle.

A company is a community that pursues profit. It is a contractual association of people who come together and cooperate to generate greater returns. If those who agreed to work together begin a struggle that dismantles the community and destroys its image from within, the company’s sense of community is bound to collapse. The KCTU repeatedly engages in exactly this kind of behavior.

It is commonplace for branches of KCTU industrial unions to organize boycotts against the products of the very companies where their members work. This is difficult to understand by ordinary common sense, but within the KCTU it is a common form of struggle. Even if such anti-business action harms the companies they work for, the attitude seems to be that as long as the union’s interests are secured, nothing else matters. Such anti-business struggle becomes a means for unions to secure privileges and benefits, but all the collaborators who make up the community together suffer harm. This shows they lack any sense of community.

The KCTU’s industrial union model provides a logic well suited to destroying a sense of community. They prioritize being members of a branch of a KCTU industrial union over belonging to the company itself. In other words, they do not see themselves as part of the company community. As a result, they feel no need to have loyalty to the company or any sense of shared community. For example, the union at Hyundai Motor is called the “Hyundai Motor Branch of the Korean Metal Workers’ Union.” This means the KCTU industrial union is the core entity, with a branch located at Hyundai Motor. In short, for union members, the KCTU comes first and the company comes second.

In Europe, industrial unions inherited the traditions of local communities and operate as part of the corporate community, contributing to productivity at industrial sites. Why is that not the case in Korea? Because the KCTU is not grounded in business and local communities, but instead seeks political struggle.

When industrial unions target companies in order to secure privileges, a problem arises: they take more than their fair share. By attacking companies, they can force labor-management agreements favorable to themselves and thereby extract enormous sums of money. This reduces the share available to other workers under labor contracts, especially non-regular workers and employees of subcontractors. The widening gap in Korea between regular and non-regular workers, and the deepening wage gap with subcontractor employees, are the results of this style of struggle practiced by industrial unions.

When the KCTU launches an attack, the targeted company suffers enormous damage. Because it operates through industrial unions, substantial struggle funds can be funneled to disputes at the targeted company. Support from related organizations or the media may also be mobilized. Moreover, political circles cannot ignore the KCTU’s power and therefore tend to seek an end to the dispute in ways that support it.

Targeted companies are subjected to prolonged suffering. Unions hang banners in front of factory gates disparaging and cursing the company and its management. They create noise through loudspeakers and undermine the workplace atmosphere through tent sit-ins and struggle activities inside business sites. They stage declaration rallies, press conferences announcing hunger strikes, ceremonies launching joint action and civic action, press conferences calling for participation in boycott actions, and nighttime rallies. They also hold candlelight cultural events in the form of cultural festivals. The damage to the company concerned, as well as to local residents, is substantial. As a result, companies suffer various side effects, including declines in brand value, weakened worker motivation, depletion of management resources, and even the breakdown of management systems.

If production sites are to return to normal and society is to become a healthy one in which people receive compensation in proportion to their contribution, the KCTU’s industrial-union style of struggle must come to an end. Only then will rational labor-management agreements be possible and workers receive fair compensation.

Sung-no Choi, President of the Center for Free Enterprise (CFE)

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Original title: 자기가 다니는 기업 공격하는 민노총 산별노조

Author: Sung-no Choi

Date: 2022-12-05

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=press&idx=25111