-A symposium was held under the theme of “examination and vision of the Korean women workers’ movement for 20 years.”

A symposium was organized on October 30^th, 2007 in celebration of 20 years of KWWA. The first symposium under the title of “Women’s Work, Changes for 20 years and Prospect” examined objectively the changes of ‘Korean women workers’ for the past 20 years, and the second symposium looked subjectively at how ‘women workers’ movement’ has been changed.

20 years of empowering Korean women workers

Choi Sangrim, chairperson of Korean Women Workers Association (KWWA) largely made 4 divisions of our activities by period.

First of all, between 1987 when KWWA was founded and 1992, KWWA was very actively involved in the establishment of democratic trade unions. A highest number of trade unions were organized in Korea during the period. KWWA endeavored to support the establishment of democratic trade unions and increase in trade unions, the awareness of women workers’ issues such as equal employment opportunities and maternity protection.

During the second period between 1992 and 1998, the necessity for our supporting trade unions was steadily decreased due to the foundation of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU). There was a rising necessity for organizing unorganized women workers, and so we at KWWA carried out activities such as vocational training, job placement, and open classes to meet women workers’ needs. Hotline for Equality, hotlines for improving equal employment for women was initiated in 1994.

Thirdly, between 1998 and 2002 most women workers experienced sudden poor working conditions such as unemployment, irregular employment and underemployment due to the Korean financial crisis in late 1997. 9 branch offices of KWWA across the nation established the ‘Action Center for Women’s Unemployment’ to publicize serious situations of unemployed women who had been mostly ignored in the shade of social concerns about male breadwinners’ unemployment, and as a consequence, our activities generated the provision of social welfare systems for ‘unemployed women’.

In addition, Korean Women’s Trade Union (KWTU) was established in 1999 to tackle difficulties of irregular women workers. Different forms of irregular employment were largely spread out in the Korean society since the Korean financial crisis. The membership of KWTU was about 450 in 1999 when it was founded, presently increased to 6000, and it is evaluated as a good example of organizing various kinds of irregular women workers.

During the fourth period from 2002 up to the present, KWWA has tried to tackle women workers’ poverty that has become far more serious by socioeconomic polarization. The National Cooperative of House Managers (NCHM) and the Hope Center to Abolish Poverty and Increase the Rights of Women Workers (HCAPIRWW) were founded in 2004 and 2006, respectively, in order to tackle middle aged women workers’ unemployment and labor issues in the informal sector. The organizations aimed to overcome limitations of women workers in poverty who was mostly viewed as just recipients of social welfare, to empower them by themselves and to get actively involved in tackling socioeconomic polarization.

Women Activists evaluated ”what good jobs we have done”

All of KWWA’s women activists were engaged in the self-evaluation of our activities for the past 20 years and chose the following as “our good jobs.”

The most fruitful outcome was the improvement of acts and regulations. For the 20 years we have undertaken the improvement of numerous regulations and acts such as Infant Care Act (enacted in 1991), Sexual Equality Employment Act (in 1987), Employment Insurance Act (in 1993), Gender Discrimination Prevention & Relief Act (enforced in 1997), paid beak for childcare (introduced in 2001), assistance system for unemployed women householders (in 1998), and minimum wage system. Additionally, our activities have had a great impact on government’s policy making.

“What we like the most is the enactment of the Infant Care Act. At that time, people had to bring their kids from very distant places by bus (to put their children in childcare centers). So, childcare facilities are so valuable to us. Mothers whose children were cared in the centers joined signature collecting campaign together. We were very happy when the act was made.”

The second most fruitful outcome was the establishment of women’s trade unions. Many doubted the establishment of Korean Women’s Trade Union (KWTU), although they agreed on the necessity of the establishment, but KWTU was founded amid the swirl of the economic crisis, and has been growing with 6,000 members. As a result, we evaluated to have two main pillars in the Korean women workers’ movement.

“For 7 years we have fought for irregular workers that none is concerned. At that time, we seemed in the fog of uncertainty. KWTU was only one solution. We could help trying to organize women workers in workplace to reach out our hands for them. We believe setting up (women’s) trade union would encourage irregular women workers whose voice was unheard to speak up in the society. So (we believe) women workers were able to tackle (their problems by themselves).”

Organizing women in need was evaluated as the third most fruitful outcome by female activists. They were marginalized as unemployed women, women in poverty, irregular workers in the labor market, but KWWA has carried out activities but to organize and empower women workers who are in a vicious circle of unemployment, underemployment and employment, not just to give assistance to them. In the forms of cooperatives as well as KWTU, attempts to organize women have been made, and some of them are very successful. The National Cooperative of House Managers (NCHM) is a valuable example.

“There were unorganized workers working as underemployed workers, the unemployed and working women in the informal sector. A lot! We felt we should play our role in helping those people and their organizations to speak out through any form of organization. So, we made this cooperative. KWWA aims to activate and consolidate the organization. Our role is to help this self-dependent organization grow rather than to confine it within KWWA.”

Our most important task is improving the quality of life for women workers impoverished due to socio-economic polarization

Rapidly changing globalization and socioeconomic polarization have affected the Korean women workers’ movement. Most women activists agreed that ‘improving the quality of life for women workers’ is the most important task.

“For example, in 1987 we demanded to increase wages and improve working conditions. But now we call for more jobs for women. (We can say) we seemed in retreat and so are women workers.  At that time, we demanded all of the abolishment of gender discrimination, and equal pay for equal work, but now we ask the government to create more jobs. Since the conditions are worsening, the scope of our tasks is wider.”

“People have become individualized in severe competition, so people have lost easy and composed attitudes. We are trying to help people to speak up and lead a happy life. Our initial aim of our movement and activities are still going on.”

Choi Sangrim, chairperson of KWWA emphasized ‘equal pay for work of equal value should be applied in the society through gender-equal job analysis, all workers should be beneficiaries of the 4 major social insurances, and irregular workers should be socially insured in the medical, housing and education fields.’ In order to achieve this, she indicated ‘the women workers’ movement should develop methods of organization in accordance with women’s situations and help them grow as a variety of organizations. The alternative economic movement should be expanded and reached to daily lives as well as workplaces.

I’ve already grown as a middle-grade activist over the time of endurance

Professor Shin Kyeong-ah, in charge of the second debate, evaluated merits of women workers’ associations in the following after carrying out in-depth interviews with 12 women workers.

(The researcher evaluated each) branch organization under KWWA looked at what have needed for women workers (workplace-oriented), provided what they have needed (practice-oriented), and (evaluated) the backbone of the movement was women workers (people-led).  The organizations can be said to be a driving force for successful law reform movement.”

However, the researcher evaluated women workers working at KWWA’s organizations had seemed very exhausted after analyzing 12 activists’ lives, and participants agreed about that. As shown through a talk by an activist “I’ve already grown as a middle-grade activist over time of endurance,” systematic training program is urgently needed. In addition, ‘carrying out generation-cognitive projects,’ ‘increasing payment and reducing workloads,’ and ‘preparing projects for retired activists’ were pointed out as our future tasks.

In celebration of 20 years of Korean Women Workers Association (KWWA), KWWA is under discussion on setting up its visions. KWWA evaluated and reviewed its activities for the past 20 years, and conducted a survey on its activities for the 20 years and the examination of reality, targeting all the staff. Between 19-20th October, 2007, a workshop on KWWA’s vision was organized in Daejeon to discuss where we are, and how and where we should go in future.

About 90 staff members took a part in the workshop. Substantial lectures carried out first were hits with the participants. In the first session about ‘women workers’ changing lives,’ professor Cho Soonkyung gave a lecture on struggles and solidarity for analyzing male regular workers-centered labor market in the feminist perspective and improving discriminatory situations, and professor Lee Youngja, a sociologist talked about the theme of ‘making solidarity beyond labor issues against globalization and carrying out the life movement with a new perspective.’ Although the long titles sounded like headaches, we were able to feel her pains and sincerity during the first lecture, and the latter lecture was energetic, cheering and heart-warming. The lectures were so substantial that participants asked so many questions to the lecturers. We were just sorry that we didn’t have enough time to discuss fully.

The lectures was followed by the announcement of results on the survey where full-time staffs and important members participated and talks about the evaluation of KWWA’s 20 years and development tasks carried out by KWWA’s chairperson. Because we wanted to know what ideas other staff and activists have, the survey result draw our attention a lot. According to the survey result, staff members and activists shared our vision on this organization relatively well, and 75.9% took pride in our organization, which is quite high, and 77.6% evaluated they have grown a lot through KWWA’s activities. However, the people surveyed raised several points that the vision of this organization should go with visions for individual members, capability building is important in the organization, training opportunities should be expanded, and there should be decreases in workloads and increases in payment.

After dinner, we had a get-together, a highlight of the workshop, lasting for 6 hours until the next morning. Kim Kwang-sook from a gender education center introduced how to establish philosophy for individual members and this organization and set up the vision for this organization together. In the following session, we spent time on praising others. At the beginning, participants were so embarrassed that we did not know how to do nicely. But over time we became so engaged in this session that we could be good at finding other people’s good points. We also had a good time to write down ‘what I want to be like’ and let others know it with confidence, and to make a practical and reliable plan in the 4 areas of knowledge, virtue, health and spirit. The participants were so full of self-esteem and confidence through this session that they could be fully engaged in the establishment of vision for this organization, which were organized in the following day. Although it was too hard to finalize the project for setting up the vision for this organization, it was a very impressive and valuable moment in which we can check the image and vision for this organization together.

Korean Women Workers Association (KWWA) and Korean Women’s Trade Union (KWTU) jointly held a forum (on suggestions to presidential candidates made by 4 female labor specialists--realities and solution of women workers) to produce practical and effective policies for women workers prior to the presidential election. On December 16, the 4 specialists (Chang Jiyeon, Eun Soomi, Kwon Hyeja, and Seok Jae-eun) discussed changes in a labor paradigm, female labor without experiencing any discrimination, job creation for women workers, and rights to social security and public spirited care service.

Needed is a notion that all women are workers

Researcher Chang Jiyeon claimed that the minimum wage is usually set in accordance with people’s earnings and job performances in societies like Korea where social welfare systems are largely poor, and that many poor people cannot evade from poverty although they work hard since their quality of job is too low. Women are one of the most marginalized groups who cannot find proper and secure jobs in the labor market and are alienated and isolated from national welfare systems. Low income-earners out of the whole women workers accounted for 41.9% (who earned less than 4,712 won an hour as of 2006). 66.6% irregular women workers working at the establishments hiring less than 5 persons were found to be low-income earners. This shows there is a higher rate of women workers earning low incomes, compared with male workers, in terms of establishment and pattern of employment. In addition, only 16% women have social insurances through their jobs, while 32.5% men have. Only those who make a contribution to social insurances can be beneficiary of the welfare system in Korea, since the Korean welfare system is based on social insurances. Employees working in very small establishments and irregular workers are largely excluded from the welfare system, and most of them are women. Why women are in a very vulnerable position in the labor market is that male workers not needing to support families are standardized. Researcher Chang Jiyeon suggested that labor paradigms should be changed to solve the poverty and exclusion of women in terms of social welfare. Firstly, she suggested tthe expansion of the scope of social insurances tthe expansion of the scope of the labor standard act and the reinforcement of its management and tthe reinforcement of the management of a proper application of the minimum wage in order that social welfare can cover all women workers practically. Secondly, she also recommended that all labor and social security policies should be developed under the main definition that all women are basically workers. For this, she claimed that tthe policies should be targeted individually and tcare work should be socialized.

Alpha girls cannot grow to be alpha women in Korea

Researcher Eun Soomi indicated that women experience double discrimination in relation to disadvantages of job opportunities and patterns of employment, under her topic of “three tasks for guaranteeing female labor equally.” The steady growth of female economic activities has confirmed the improvement of direct discrimination. In particular, in the case of women at age of less than 29, their employment rate in the labor market has been improved, although the number is not high enough. In addition, the wage gap between genders has been narrowed steadily and wage differences between genders in the workplace have been enhanced. However, women workers have still suffered from indirect discrimination in the forms of work career disruption, changes in employment patterns before and after the period of career disruption, and wage differences due to the segregation by occupation between genders. The traditional M curve is still drawn in Korea. What is worse is that women’s employment patterns are usually changed from regular workers to irregular workers. The majority of aged women work as temporary and day workers or being self-employed. In conclusion, she mentioned there are alpha girls but no alpha women in the Korean society. Since direct discrimination has been improved, young women can find jobs more easily, but their jobs cannot be guaranteed 10 or 20 years after. Researcher Eun Soomi  suggested that taffirmative countermeasures for improving employment should be consolidated tequal work value equal wage should be effectively provided t countermeasures for irregular workers should be given, so as to find a way out of this situation.

Important are job creation and job continuity for women

Researcher Kwon Hyeja claimed the government should consider not only the creation of women’s jobs but also the continuity of their jobs. We are living in the Korean society where more than 10,000,000 women are employed. The government has focused on job creation for the not-economically active population, trying to induce women, not-economically active population, to participate in the labor market as economically active population. However, the researcher insisted problems in the female labor market should be solved in advance. While there has been a steady increase in the number of high quality of jobs (such as professional and high-ranking positions) for women, it is characteristic that the employment in the formal sector (where highly salaried workers work in large-size companies) is segregated from that in the informal sector and in very small-size companies (where jobs are very poorly paying) and their job entrances are separated. There are also large wage gaps and job shifts between the two sectors are not allowed. Additionally, it is more effective to provide policies preventing women from losing or leaving their jobs rather than supporting women workers who already experience job disruption. Overall, it is needed to create women’s jobs although they are high quality of jobs or not, but the creation of poor quality of jobs should be stopped. Recently, women’s jobs in the social services including teachers in childcare centers, nurses, house caretakers are involved in looking after patients, kids, and disabled people, where women are largely segregated and jobs offer poor payment. In this respect, she insisted it is necessary to expand but jobs for women in the non-traditional areas including IT where women do not largely work. In short, implied is the importance of tthe improvement of female participation rates in economic activities and the provision of countermeasures of preventing women from losing and leaving their jobs tthe improvement of job segregation by gender and the improvement of treating irregular women workers and tbuilding up systematic and effective employment infrastructures, in order to enhance the creation of high quality of jobs for women.

Rights to pensions for individual women should be guaranteed

Professor Seok Jae-eun made suggestions in regard of basic rights related to social security policies. Presently, Korean social security policies are based on social insurance and people have the rights to social security only through chipping in money in this situation. As of 2005, while 34.4% men did not receive pension, 65.6% women suffer from no pension. Amongst the population at the age of 20-59, while 40.7% men did not receive public pension, 73.5% women did not receive any. This is attributed to the structural exclusion of women, caused by higher rate of not-economically active female population, underemployment, unpaid family work, and non-householders. There are limitations of the current social security operated under the male breadwinner model and pension centered by household unit. Should be established a structure in which pension by individual unit should be guaranteed, individual women should have independent rights, and the right to pension should not be connected to pensioners’ performances and earnings. The professor highlighted t individual women can have the right to pension, t the right to social security should be provided immediately without excluding any through formulating a development plan of basic old-age pension.

In addition, professor Seok Jae-eun mentioned 80% of women are involved in care jobs in which there have been social demands for the expansion of care services, and accordingly care services have been expanded. Currently, long term care insurance system for the aged has been established and a variety of service vouchers have been issued. However, she indicated how to gain public spirit should be considered at the same time, although there are some advantages of possible privatization of these services because the quality of services might be upgraded. She also raised an issue that care services should be more public spirited for the side of care receivers and that ways in which care jobs can be developed into good professions should be founded out for the side of care providers.

A national assembly member Il-do Bae from the Grand National Party, a debater of the forum insisted that severe controls and restrictions on corporate activities should be removed, clarifying Grand National Party’s basic policy is based on economic growth. Meanwhile, Choonsaeng Yeoh, a female policy expert advisor from the United New Democratic Party promised the socialization of maternity protection and the expansion of affirmative employment improvement measures, saying “I am here to find logical ground for making policies. I am surprised at the high number of women who do not receive any employment insurance.”

Park Insook from the Labor Party said “your suggestions are already reflected on most of Labor Party’s policies. We have been concerned for re-organizing for women, male-centered policies related to employment, earning income, and social welfare, which is different from other political parties.” She also clarified “we believe qualitative accesses to jobs for women are needed rather than quantitative accesses. We have prepared for an activation project for women and a care sharing project.” Myung Jinsook, a special advisor from the Creative Korea Party mentioned “we should ask for whom growth is and for whom development is,” highlighting “it is needed to develop growth-and-welfare-based policies spontaneously.” She also insisted that social compromise should be ahead, because it is impossible to overcome wage gapes between the rich and the poor through any restructuring, saying “it is necessary to establish the perspective of equality and the politics of difference in which all social components can be treated equally.”

♧Korean Women Workers Association:

Address : 3rd fl. 351-28, Seogyo-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul #121-837, South Korea
Tel : 82-2-325-6817,6822(press "0")  Fax : 82-2-325-6839
Email : kwwa@paran.com

Kyun, Ok Hei
(a press worker)

Whang, Hyun Suk(Seoul Women Workers Association)

Hwang Hyun-Sook (Seoul Women workers Association)

Working Women Vol.7

June, 1996

"If they had listened to our complaints of unbearable headaches and breathing difficulties and dizziness, if there only existed safety education and protection zones, if a physical check-up was done at least once a week, this shameful group solvent poisoning would never have happened....."
(Victims of organic solvent poisoning at LG Electronics)

---

Feature
Solvent poisoning that caused sterility

Voices from the Field
Unemployment By Shut Down - Nobody is Safe
Under the solidarity of labour let's overcome the confrontation between men and women promoted by companies
Masan free trade zone faced with employment instability

Introduction
The people associated with the Tuntun Children's House

---

Korea Working Women's Network 1997