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9 - From “We Are Not Machines, We Are Humans” to “We Are Workers, We Want to Work”

The Changing Notion of Labor Rights in Korea, the 1980s to the 2000s

from Part III - Mobilizing Rights for the Marginalized

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 April 2021

By
Yoonkyung Lee
Edited by
Celeste L. Arrington  and
Patricia Goedde
Celeste L. Arrington
Affiliation:
George Washington University, Washington DC
Patricia Goedde
Affiliation:
Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul
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Summary

The definition of labor rights for Korean workers has changed since the 1980s along with the neoliberal transformation of the economy. While workers demanded humane treatment and the right to form autonomous labor unions in the earlier period, labor rights in present day Korea are anchored on workers’ status recognition and the right to secure employment. Also, the methods through which workers press for their rights have shifted from union-based collective action to symbolic and extreme forms of protest. This chapter examines the changing notion of labor rights by investigating how structural conditions in the labor market generate workers’ primary grievances, how these grievances enlighten workers’ rights consciousness, and how workers’ interactions with employers and state institutions, including via labor laws, shaped the core claims of labor rights in the 1980s and the 2000s, respectively. It also compares the forms of collective action that workers take to assert their rights in these two periods.

Keywords

Laborrightslabor lawlabor unionworkersneoliberalismgrievanceprotestcollective actionSouth Korea
Type
Chapter
Information
Rights Claiming in South Korea , pp. 195 - 216
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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