It is the system of calculating the wage percentage increase on the total wage that workers are in great reaction against. Beginning enforcement from 1992, it focused on wage control and gradually has been turning its purpose to implementation of 'result wage system'.

It started to be apparent as companies which enforced 5% wage control last year has begun to make payment on the result of labor in the shape of year end bonuses to pacify workers.

Adopting the limit wage control line of 3% this year (within 5% inclusive of pay steps), the government intended to enforce a wage control policy. However, the government took a step backward to accretion degree as a result of a meeting with economic leaders of 5 organizations last Jan. 12 where it was claimed that total wage system has produced 1ots or ill effects. Accordingly it was suggested that wage raise should be negotiated this year through free bargaining between labor and management.

The government announced its position that it would force government-run agencies to raise wages within 3% at the tota1 wage but a110w private business sectors to resolve the wage-related matters in the future through negotiations between labor management and government.

No doubt private employers will not give up wage control policy. Then what made them object to the enforcement of a wage policy of 3% raise on total wage and moreover, what brought the government to accept their proposal? Judging that the force of labor unions has been weakened and the ideology of wage control has been accepted in a reasonable way, the employers came to be confident or achieving control or of freezing of wages.

More basically, the total wage system is a certain obstacle to the introduction of result-wage system and a pay system according to functions & duties which are wage structures of wage directly relating to the increase of productivity

Not only to clarify a wage control policy but also to minimize workers' objections, the government has the intention of taking sanctions to put management negotiation ahead of physical violence. At the same time, they also intend to convert present wage system to a result-wage system which aims to distribute profits to workers in accordance with productivity increase.

Under the veiled excuse that result wage system will pay in proportion to ability, the principle or wages based on our living cost is completely denied and converted into payment according to functions & duties or payment by quata or products produced.

Consequently, the result-wage system will convert a collective relation of labor and management into an individual relation of the two. Companies will decide wages & promotion of workers on their evaluation of the individual workers ability to execute his/ her duty.

Such a method of wage calculation not only reinforces the intensity of labor but also gives rise to excessive mutual competition among workers through which firm bonds of workers' unity will be destroyed and the absolute ruling power of management over workers will be secured.

At present large monopoly factories are examining the introduction of payment according to functions & duties. There are various types or result-wage system such as reward system or flexible bonus system which is today's replacement for the quata system. Accordingly this year's struggle for wage raise will develop into: 1) An aggressive objection to the introduction of result -wage system for the reason of security for the basic cost of living and 2) to blocking of 3% wage control.

In order to solve the problem of low productivity which was causing the company to face many difficulties, the president of Seoul Engine Bearing in Kuro 3 industrial complex had a meeting with the chief workers. There he announced his plan to execute a semi-president system after judging that the company's poor situation was caused by workers' negligence and excessive demands of labor unions.

The labor union was into opposition to the system. However, most of unionists wondered why it should be opposed since it said workers could gain as much as they worked.

Therefore. the unions investigated companies which had carried out the system. Through the investigation was disclosed that the majority or the companies carrying out this system are in financial difficulties. At initial stage it seemed to yield fruits but as time went by resulted only in increasing the intensity of labor the final result was a break up of the labor unions. For these reasons the union made its strong objection against the system.

At the same time the union leaders worked to strengthen the unity of workers through many kind of campaigns such as greetings to one another when coming to work wearing lapel ribbons or headbands, lunchtime meeting at the work site, Jockoo(a sort of soft footbal1) events for the purpose of refusing overtime work and abolition of the semi-president system. As a result of this unity building activity, the union members decided to return the extra money they received through evaluation of their productivity. With that the semi-president system & promotion system that went with it, both disappeared workers never again.

But the company decided to institute the semi-president system for the Apyunban section. ( the work of the Apyunban is so rough and hard that this section has a frequent turn- over of workers. ) The union made clear its objection to this decision on principle and countered that labor union officers would by turns, work in the section that was short of workers.

However, the solution did not work so the company decided to institute the semi-president system temporarily for the year of 1992. In the first 3 months production went up 41% and consequently workers pay went up 45% so the company announced that as of April, 1992 the system of pay according to efficiency would definitely be instituted.

Although the union was involved in matters like wage struggle, collective bargaining and reinstatement of the union committee leader, they suggested settling this matters first and get to negotiation afterwards.

So they formed small units and made a survey about pay based on efficiency and did case researches. In addition, they had educators explain wage system to the workers and exposed the company's intention to evade the struggle points of the wage raise, collective bargaining, reinstatement of workers to their original positions. to dissolve the labor union and to incapacitate the labor union in the long run the labor union claimed that increase of production without investment in production & facilities was only for the company to obtain profits through increasing the labor intensity and lengthening the labor time. It also claimed that in distribution of the profits of production it was quite possible for the company to exploit the workers' surplus efforts.

In addition they explained that it was very difficult to set up standard that would fairly judge the differences in amount of work, degree of skill & work strength according to sex and age. In view of the company's complaint of workers poor attitude and negligence, the union urged workers to improve reduction by keeping good working hours and a good attitude.

However, in last August of 1992 when the struggles for wage raise, revision of collective bargaining and reinstatement came to an end, on the persistent demand of the company, it was agreed to institute the pay for efficiency separately according to sections.

However, this brought about a difference between sections and gave rise to conflicts between them. Therefore, recognizing that the conflicts between union members would break up the union, the labor union made a strong case for establishing a unified efficiency pay through the whole company Nevertheless the system was finally abolished since it turned out to be ineffectual and it was difficult to apply the system uniformly due to the difference of product quantity and the specialty of work.

What brought the victory against the Semi-president system and pay for efficiency was attributed to the leaders' thorough preparation and the method of their appeal to the masses along with the company's attitude not to force their plans into effect.

Above a11, the victory was due to the intimacy and unity among unionists and unionists' trust in leaders which has been formed through many years of struggles.

Long term economy stagnation caused about 10,000 small or medium sized companies to shut down or give up their business this has forced a lot of workers out of their jobs into the streets. As the sluggish economy is expected to become even more severe this year, it is inevitable that management will increase the cut backs in personnel in order to achieve rationalization and survive the recession.

No less than l0,000 unemployed are feared to be the result to. In addition, the introduction of semi-president system from last year has led many companies to curtail regular workers on a large scale and to replace them with temporary workers or dispatched workers. For these reasons employment status of workers is expected to become more insecure in the future.

However, government's new labor policy has no fundamental alternate plan at all to resolve the insecurity of employment caused by rationalization of management though it has a partial labor principle of introducing workers for reemployment and making the personnel supply & demand run smoothly.

Through such a gap in the new labor policy, the matter of employment insecurity is rapidly getting worse. One of the worst cases is a whirlwind of personnel slashes which spread over from large to small or medium sized companies.

The cases of worker reduction in Samhyungsa or Kuro industry complex, Taelim electronics and Jindo show how serious the slash was. To overcome the slowdown of imports, Samhyungsa, a manufacturing company ol mode1 trains reduced their maximum number of 60O workers down to lOO and Taelim electronics which was considering conversion of their business structure cut about 400 personals down to 1OO.

Jindo which at one time employed no less than l0OO people turned a part of their production lines to subcontracting and entered into a continuous personnel slash, now centering their management personals of about 100 at the head offfice.

Seil heavy industry of Changwon industry complex also reduced 814 or 25% of the total employees this gave rise to workers' anger particularly because it was ex-union officers or enthusiastic union members who were fired in the company.

The dismissal was interpreted not as a simple slash but as oppression for the purpose of paralyzing the wage raise struggle which had powerfully spread over Masan-Changwon regions.

In this way the matter of employment insecurity brings about not only high unemployment due to personnel reduction but also enforcement of labor intensity and neutralization or labor unions by enlarging outside orders, subcontracting, semi-president system and production line partition

The labor union of Samsung pharmaceutical company which was founded in 1975 has concluded a collective bargaining agreement which guarantees breast feeding time, pre & post maternity leave and so on.

Through these activities the union kept on striving to insure life time employment for workers. This union is one of the most solidly-organized bodies. for his reason the establishment of a day care center in the work place became an urgent task.

While the labor union continued to strengthen its organization in order to insecure life time employment for women, they faced new difficulties. The company was transferred and began to employ dispatched labor.

During this time the company diminished its production lines through automation of manufacturing and didn't hire any new employees so that natural diminution of workers clearly came into view.

Meanwhile in August of l992 the company moved from Seoul to Banwo1, a pharmaceutical industry complex. In reaction to this, the labor union entered into negotiation as a result of which compensation for 3 months of 50,000 won per month was paid to the workers and a commuting bus was provided for them.

Despite this result only 57 of the 90 union members could take jobs in the new work place. But the next problem met by the workers was an undisguised oppression of the labor union in the form or dispatched labor. In the of factories there were 30 dispatched workers replacing the duties of unionists before the transferred unionists came to work.

The company kept the unionists from the work sites and made them pluck out weeds and get 7 days of work training which they had already had. Since the unionists couldn't endure it. they attempted to attend their own work sites and at last they were able to retake their own jobs.

The problem was that the dispatched laborers increased to 1OO, whereas unionists gradually decreased in number. Despite the fact that the company had to make additional payments to the workers dispatching companies of 50,000 per workers monthly, the company went on substituting dispatched workers for the decreasing union members. This fact shows that the company's underlying motive was to make the labor union powerless through a diminution of unionists.

Consequently the labor union staged a struggle demanding that the company absorbing dispatched workers as regular workers. The company claimed that management had the right to do this. In addition the company converted the dispatched labor to subcontracted workers.

In the long run the labor union of Samsung pharmaceutical company recognized that to do a more powerful struggle against dispatched labor would be the only way to maintain the union. Therefore, the union along with the remaining 47 unionists made a protest visit to Labor Affairs Ministry and staged a demonstration at the industry complex.

In addition they have also carried out various other struggle activities such as gathering in the playground of the factory every breakfast, 1unch and supper time to sing and shout out slogans and such type of small demonstrations.

In the last presidential election, the candidate Kim Young Sam stated that the frequent desperate dispute between labor and management was one of the Korean chronic diseases and asked that labor and management make a truce for the stable advancement of the economy.

Of course it has been a long standing issue that management and government assumed the ideological offensive in order to oppress the workers' right to a living and the right to independent solidarity. It started from an assertion that wage rises cause price instability and damage to companies' financial situation.

From late 1989 a cry that 'workers are responsibility for the economic crisis ' was raised claiming that excessive wage rises brought about a weakening of the international competitiveness of the economy.

Last year 'A campaign for 30 more minutes or work' was widespread, blaming the workers for laziness. However, the President Kim Yung Sam has assumed the ideological offensive and turned it into a campaign for voluntarily harder work, drawing out the consent and agreement of workers.

This is the very theory or labor and management companionship or theory of sharing pains advocated by him for the purpose of increasing of productivity. p Then what is the contents of the ideological offensive launched by President Kim Young Sam called 'sharing pains'? As mentioned before, although the new labor policy has been developed to break through the crisis of the Korean economy by increasing of labor productivity, the core or the policy is 1) to revise the structure of working which brings the intensity or labor and insecurity of employment to the maximum, 2) to introduce a result wage system which enforces competitiveness among laborers and breaks down the class solidarity of workers and 3) to change the organizing system of labor unions which will divide the workers while building up cooperation between labor and management, the ideological offensive of management and government can be a formidable weapon used to draw out workers' consent and agreement with a minimal resistance from workers.

This is particularly true when a large-scaled ideologic offensive precedes the forced execution of such a new labor policy. The resulting wage system supported by this ideology is beautified to illustrate that the increased profit from labor productivity would be distributed to workers.

The revision of working structure is shown as an attempt to humanize labor, avoiding alienation of labor caused by repetition simple in using advanced machines.

Although the semi-president system leads to insecurity of employment and makes workers unity essentially impossible, it is wrapped in hope "I can be a president of a company" or "We workers will be rewarded as much as we work". For these reasons, the motto 'cooperation between labor and management' can easily influence workers, giving them a rosy hope.

Actually 'sharing pains' is really no different from "1abour responsibility for the economy crisis". But it is a more solid and well-polished offensive because it is presented to the workers with a more over all friendly appearance.

Government and management take a rosy view that on account of increasing sympathy for the difficulties of our economy and the maturity of labor awareness, the stable relation between labor and management wi11 continue, They also acknowledge that the labor struggle will be potentially heated by: 1) employment insecurity due to control of recruiting new workers and reduction management: 2) wage raise expectations according to the hikes of public tariffs such as bus fare; and 3) the introduction of total wage policy and result wage principle.

They planed to handle the labor struggle with a bilateral policy of mediation and oppression to achieve stable relations between labor and management.

Since government wishes to secure the political situation around in the auguration of President Kim Young-Sam and pave the way for the new labor policy through large-scaled pub1icity, it is attempting to create an atmosphere in which management of the businesses leads negotiations over wage raise and general working conditions.

As a result it is expected that disputes between labor and management will be heated. With the support of the government's ideological attack, management are apt to move to neutralize the labor unions and to threaten the living rights of workers by applying varied working time, introducing the semi-president system, firing, slashing workers and hiring part time workers on a large scale even prior to entering the struggle for wage hikes.

They also intend to carry through the policy of wage control and result-wage, taking advantage of the new government policy and using it as a threatening method.

Accordingly there is an urgent needs to strengthen the organizing power of labor unions for an effective response to the management oppression. To fortify the organizing power of labor unions it is necessary to broaden the activities of unions by a positive approach to non-unionists, part time workers and strengthen those unions lacking in organizing power in addition the preparations for the struggle should be made as follows.

First, workers should call for guarantee of actual wage based on the cost or living as opposed to wage control policy; a rational wage system based on a seniority principle of increasing salary according to age or years of service, or equal pay for equal work, as opposed to wages based on efficiency or duties.

Further the workers should demand a salary increment scheme that dose not discriminate according to educational leve1, type of work or sex.

Secondly, workers should take part in the struggle to establish legal and institutiona1 measures such as a law on employment security; to institute as soon as possible unemployment insurance and workers participation in management.

This has to be preceded by a raising of the workers awareness and understanding of the social and policy background which is the cause of unemployment. It is necessary to provide that such actions as subcontract partition, transfer, shut down or closing to the company should be decided through collective bargaining.

In the case of a company's partition, merger or absorption by another company, the continuity of workers employment and labor union recognition should be guaranteed under the new management.

Thirdly, even though the mass media has been dominated by government and management, workers should strive to publicize the justness of their struggle. More important they should make it clear that the economic crisis has not been caused by the wage raise of workers but to the inevitable result of deepening subordination of the Korean economy to advanced capitalism and our monopolistic capital-oriented economy.

The struggle for the right to live should run parallel with a demand for economic democracy including independence of the Korean economy, obligation of using real name financial accounting system and rigid control of Chabol ( monopolistic business group) to prevent the concentration of economic power.

In particular workers should make the public aware of the fact that workers are one of the most important powers for the achievement of social democracy.

Because this is the time when government and business want to change the labor law in order to institute the new labor policy, this year's wage struggle will have an effect on public opinion and consequently will be a critical factor in deciding whether the law will be revised or not.

Recognizing that price hikes in addition to employment insecurity interferes with to price hikes has oppressed the labor's right to a living, workers should determine to break down the policy of wage restriction.

The wage raise struggle will be an important one together with the struggle for employment security. Since the struggle to block the amendment of labor policy is a reaction to the united front formed by all the capitalists the struggle of workers should be supported by nation-wide solidarity and cohesion.

At an event of workers last year, we, workers cried out in one voice the mottoes: "set-up of labor unions should be industry-based" and for 'establishment of a Democratic Laour Union Federation'. However, our labor unions have had a lot of difficulty to bring the mottoes to reality.

If industry-based unions and regional federations develop effective campaigns to achieve employment security and defeat the total wage principle with the support or workers unity and solidarity, the industry-based unions and the National Democratic Federation will become reality.

Although suffering many difficulties, the labor union of Dongyang Elevator in Buchon has developed a campaign to which we wish to convey our spirit of solidarity. In addition, we will clear up the atmosphere of depression and defeat in our labor unions, work places an small groups and we will develop the struggles for the '93 wage hikes with total energy in solidarity.