Hyundai Motors 1998-1999: the anatomy of a strike
2000; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 24; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1177/030981680007000101
ISSN2041-0980
Autores Tópico(s)Labor Movements and Unions
ResumoOn July 20, 1998 the workers at Hyundai Motors went on strike. Although not the first industrial action since the introduction of the new anti-labour laws in December 1996, this dispute is regarded by the Korean labour movement as a defining moment in the struggle against the restructuring of work by the Korean state. The Hyundai Motor Workers’ Union is the most important union in Korea. It provided the framework and organisation for the triumphant ‘Great Struggle’ in 1987 when the people of S. Korea replaced a military dictatorship with a civilian government and it has played a major role in all the other battles since then, including the General Strike in 1996-97 and the fight against the conditions imposed by the IMF following the onset of the Asian economic crisis 1997-98. All of the issues that the labour movement and the state had been fighting for over the previous year and a half became focused on the genesis, development and outcome of the Hyundai strike. It became a microcosm of the more general conflict between capital and labour in Korea, a proxy war for all the disputes between Korean management and employees and an industrial relations experiment testing the limits of what was possible by aggressive management strategies. What the strike and its resolution reveal is a labour movement that, despite its previously inspirational capacity to effect significant social transformation, is now in a confused and uncertain condition, vulnerable to management and government attacks.
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