Militants or Partisans: Labor Unions and Democratic Politics in Korea and Taiwan

By Yoonkyung Lee

The exceptional experiences of South Korea and Taiwan in combining high growth and liberal democracy in a relatively short and similar timetable have brought scholarly attention to their economic and political transformations. This new work looks specifically at the operation of workers and unions in the decades since labor-repressive authoritarian rule ended, bringing Taiwan, in particular, into the literature on comparative labor politics.

South Korean labor unions are commonly described as militant and confrontational, for they often take to the streets in raucous protest. Taiwanese unions are seen as moderate and practical, primarily working through formal political processes to lobby their agendas. In exploring how and why these post-democratization states have come to breed such different types of labor politics, Yoonkyung Lee traces the roots of their differences to how unions and political parties operated under authoritarianism, and points to ways in which those legacies continue to be perpetuated. By pairing two cases with many similarities, Lee persuasively uncovers factors that explain the significant variation at play.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Release date: Sep 29, 2011
• ISBN: 9780804781749

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lee, Yoonkyung, 1965- author.

Militants or partisans : labor unions and democratic politics in Korea and Taiwan / Yoonkyung Lee.

    pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8047-7537-3 (cloth : alk. paper)

1. Labor unions—Political activity—Korea (South) 2. Labor unions—Political activity—Taiwan. 3. Democracy—Korea (South) 4. Democracy—Taiwan. 5. Korea (South)—Politics and government. 6. Taiwan—Politics and government. I. Title.

HD6835.5.Z65L44 2011

322′.2095195—dc22

2011004860

Typeset by Newgen in 10.5/13.5 Bembo

E-book ISBN: 978-0-8047-8174-9

Militants or Partisans

LABOR UNIONS AND DEMOCRATIC POLITICS IN KOREA AND TAIWAN

Yoonkyung Lee

Militants or Partisans

To my parents,

Lee Byunghyuk and Lee H. Junghee

Contents

Cover

Copyright

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Notes on Names and References

1.   Introduction

2.   Labor Politics: Realities, Theories, and Explanations

3.   Authoritarian Legacies and Democratic Coalitions in Korea and Taiwan

4.   Labor Unions and Political Parties in Democratized Korea and Taiwan

5.   Labor-Reform Politics in Democratized Korea and Taiwan

6.   Conclusion

Appendix A: Interviews and Participatory Observations

Appendix B: National Legislators’ Career Background (NLCB) Data

Notes

References

Index

List of Illustrations

Tables

2.1 Basic economic indicators: Korea and Taiwan

2.2 Labor-force composition by industry

2.3 SMEs in Korea and Taiwan

2.4 Common grounds of union organizations in Korea and Taiwan

2.5 Variety of labor politics in Korea and Taiwan

3.1 Chronology of political and economic development in Korea and Taiwan

3.2 Elections in Korea and Taiwan

4.1 National legislators’ career backgrounds in Korea and Taiwan: 1988–2008

4.2 Absence of class voting in Korea: 1992–2004

4.3 Party institutionalization in Korea and Taiwan

4.4 Korean parties’ membership size and dues-paying members in 2007

4.5 Supporters of the DLP

4.6 Workers’ voting in Taiwan: 1992–2004

4.7 Ethnic background of party supporters in Taiwan

4.8 Vote shares of political parties in democratic Taiwan

5.1 Labor-reform politics in Korea and Taiwan: 1987–2007

5.2 Union rights and union pluralism in Korea and Taiwan

5.3 Korean workers in distress: 1971–2000

5.4 Taiwanese workers in distress: 1987–1992

5.5 Causes of labor disputes in Korea: 1990–2004

5.6 SOEs in Korea and Taiwan: 1997–2002

5.7 Key SOEs and privatization in Korea and Taiwan

5.8 Taiwan’s independent union federations at the city/county level

5.9 Causes of labor disputes in Taiwan: 1989–2004

5.10 Rigidity of Employment Index for Korea and Taiwan

A.1 Composition of in-depth interviewees

A.2 Participatory observations

Figures

2.1 Workdays lost because of labor disputes

2.2 Number of workers involved in labor disputes in Korea and Taiwan, 1989–2007

2.3 Workdays lost because of labor disputes in Korea and Taiwan, 1989–2007

2.4 Union density in Korea and Taiwan, 1987–2007

2.5 Union structure in Korea and Taiwan

2.6 Typology of partisan relations and labor politics

3.1 Votes for the KMT and opposition in supplementary legislative elections, 1969–1992

4.1 Political parties in democratic Korea

4.2 Political parties, labor-movement groups, and unions in Taiwan

4.3 Political parties in democratic Taiwan

5.1 Real wage increases in Korea and Taiwan, 1986–2007

5.2 Wage differentials by firm size in Korea, 1986–2004

5.3 Wage differentials by firm size in Taiwan, 1986–2004

Acknowledgments

When I first embarked on a study of this somewhat unpopular topic on Asian labor, it was hard to imagine that one day I would be writing acknowledgments before the manuscript’s publication. The day has come, and I am exuberated to write the names of the many people and institutions that aided and encouraged me to carry out this research project. First of all, I would like to thank Herbert Kitschelt, my dissertation advisor, who guided me to undertake a dissertation on labor unions in East Asia and carry it to its completion. His intellectual vigor, discipline, and acuity have been the guiding lights during my graduate studies at Duke University and beyond. My transformation from an activist to a scholar would not have been possible without his generous understanding and rigorous training.

My sincere appreciation goes to Stephan Haggard for offering me a fellowship to spend a semester at the University of California at San Diego to write this manuscript. With unending inquisitiveness and a cheerful spirit, he was a wonderful mentor to nurture this study into publication. The arguments presented in this book were obviously sharpened thanks to his meticulous reading of all the chapters and the insightful criticisms he offered. I also want to extend my gratitude to the participants of two workshops Stephan organized at UC–San Diego, where I presented an earlier version of this manuscript. I am especially grateful to Jong-sung You, Jaejin Yang, Jinhee Choung, and Kuniaki Nemoto for the scholarly conversations and camaraderie we shared during my stay in San Diego.

Hagen Koo is another person I am greatly indebted to. Although we have never worked in the same institution, he has shed tremendous intellectual influence on my study of East Asian labor through his lifetime of research on Korean workers as well as generous compliments and critical feedback on my research over the years. At the University of New York at Binghamton, where I teach and research, I am blessed to work with Fred Deyo, Ravi Palat, Benita Roth, and Leslie Gates, who with their invaluable collegial spirit helped me reevaluate my approach to labor studies from broader perspectives. I also want to thank the graduate students in the Sociology Department who took the seminar on Democracy and Labor I offered in fall 2009. The discussions in the seminar reaffirmed to me the significance of studying labor in the social sciences and provided me the impetus to get to the final revisions of the manuscript.

I would like to further express my appreciation to two anonymous reviewers who carefully read the manuscript and offered invaluable and productive comments. Their reviews enabled me to strengthen and broaden the theoretical arguments in this study while clarifying the connections with comparative cases. Stacy Wagner and Jessica Walsh at Stanford University Press deserve special thanks for their enthusiasm, promptness, and editorial professionalism from the first contact to the last minute while transforming this manuscript into a book. It was a wonderful experience to work with them as a first-time book author.

As a field researcher, I have also accrued a huge debt to many people in Korea and Taiwan. I thank Jangmin Kim, Taehyun Kim, Yoosun Kim, Hoichan Roh, and Kwangyoung Shin, who shared their insights and labor-related data and helped me better understand the historical and present complexities of Korean labor relations. During my field research in Taiwan, I immensely benefited from intellectual exchanges with Heng-hao Chang, Ming-sho Ho, Michael Hsiao, Chang-ling Huang, and Hwan-jen Liu. Special thanks go to Ru-hsin Chang, Jia-ning Hong, and Carry Su, who befriended me, translated for me, and guided me to find my way through their political histories and labor politics. Without the generous support and guidance from these scholars and activists who willingly shared the knowledge and experience they gained from their lifetime of dedication, this comparative study on labor would not have been completed.

During my field research I met many workers, rank-and-file unionists, and union leaders whose names are not fully identified in this book. I perhaps owe the greatest debts of gratitude to them. I was humbled by their willingness to spare their time to share their stories, expertise, and insights on labor politics in Korea and Taiwan with me. They not only inspired me to undertake this research project, but they also offered the crux of empirical evidence to connect the causal claims in this study. While I am entirely responsible for all the shortcomings of this book, I hope I am not misrepresenting their valuable contributions.

My field research in Korea and Taiwan at different points of time between 2000 and 2008 was made possible by generous financial support from various institutions. I thank Duke University, the Association of Asian Studies, the University of California–San Diego, the United University Professions, and the State University of New York at Binghamton for offering various summer fellowships and research grants. This work was also supported by an Academy of Korean Studies Grant funded by the Korean government (AKS-2007-CB-2001) that provided the research fellowship at UC–San Diego.

Finally, I want to thank my family and parents. My husband, Chaeho Shin, and my daughter, Isue Shin, have been the anchors and joys of my life. They accompanied me on this long journey from the inception to the completion of this study with their tremendous optimism and generous understanding. I was able to survive and balance my multiple roles as an academic professional, foreign immigrant, and mother/wife thanks to the laughter, patience, and encouragement that they infused into our family life. I feel blessed that they are a part of my life and that I am a part of theirs.

This book is dedicated to my parents, Byunghyuck Lee and Junghee H. Lee, a dedication that is overdue for the immeasurable debt of gratitude I owe to them. My father has transmitted to me a passion for learning and has always encouraged me not to remain in a narrow well but to explore the big world. My mother is one of the most dedicated and empathetic persons I know. She may not realize how much she has taught me about the importance of attending to the weak and seeking justice. Together they have always stood behind me despite the turbulent path their little daughter took since her college years. Without their unwavering love, faith, and support, I don’t think I would be standing where I am now.

Abbreviations

Notes on Names and References

Names of Korean and Taiwanese people and places are romanized. For people’s names in the text (except in the Acknowledgments), I follow the Korean and Chinese convention of listing the surnames first followed by the first names. For the romanization of Korean terms, I use the Korea Ministry of Education Guidelines, except for already established customs such as Rhee Syngman or Seoul. For Chinese terms, I use the Pinyin system, except for already established customs such as Chang Kai-shek or Kuomintang.

Frequently appearing Korean and Chinese terms such as chaebol or dangwai are followed in their first appearance in the text by English translations in parentheses. Names of organizations and institutions in Korea and Taiwan are translated into English. The fully translated names are used in their first appearance in the text, followed by their abbreviations in parentheses. Abbreviations are used thereafter. The names of Korean and Taiwanese authors are romanized, using the spelling that appears in their publication. Because not all of the interviewees wanted their identities revealed, I use a special coding method when citing interviews as a reference source. The specific coding methods are explained in Appendix A. I provide the interviewee’s name and organizational affiliation only when I had the interviewee’s consent to do so.

Militants or Partisans

1

Introduction

The Puzzle: Scooters and Cars

The scene that struck me most when I first arrived in Taipei in the spring of 2003 was of the streets filled with scooters. Young and old, men and women, humans and pets were riding these versatile vehicles. More surprisingly, there seemed to be few clashes between the scooter riders and car drivers, either in the form of physical bumping or in the sounds of yelling and swearing. This was quite a contrast to the street scenes with which I had been more familiar. The roads in Seoul are notoriously jammed with cars whose drivers are highly impatient, if not hostile, to smaller vehicles such as scooters and bikes.

As a comparativist trying to figure out the origins of divergent labor politics in East Asian democracies, I found that these contrasting street scenes seemed to capture perfectly the different paths adopted by labor unions in Korea and Taiwan. Militant, radical, and confrontational have been the words associated with Korean labor, whereas terms such as partisan, moderate, and dependent have described Taiwanese unions. The basic puzzle that this study explores in these two Asian democracies is their types of labor politics, which are as distinctive as the streets in Seoul and Taipei: Why did these seemingly twin-like East Asian polities come to breed such different types of labor politics in their post-democratization decades?

Indeed, Korea and Taiwan often team up as the most comparable pair in the imperfect world of small-number cross-national comparisons. Historically, both experienced Japanese colonialism during the first half of the twentieth century, followed by national division. Trapped within the Cold War political competition, authoritarian regimes in South Korea and Taiwan outlived the post-WWII decades under the tutelage of U.S. power. Dictators compensated for their legitimacy complex with export-oriented economic development, later to be described as the East Asian economic miracle. Along with the phenomenal industrialization and rising material affluence, a deprived working population and dissident intellectuals emerged to form the basis of a coalition to push the wheels for democratization in the late 1980s.

Astounded by the exceptional abilities of Korea and Taiwan to combine high growth and liberal democracy in such a short and similar timetable, scholars researched and wrote much about the contours of these nations’ economic and political transformations.¹ However, these analysts’ research agendas have often been bounded by the framework of the developmental state, government–business coordination, or elite-negotiated transitions.

This study turns the spotlight onto somewhat unusual collective actors in East Asia—workers and unions—and asks what happened to them when they encountered the long-yearned-for democracy after decades of labor-repressive rule. Obviously, political democratization since 1987 has ushered in heightened labor mobilization and increased union organizing. Workers have demanded decent wages and improved working conditions. But even more desperate than these voices for material compensation was their desire for humane treatment and recognition as legitimate members of a democratic system. Yet the way in which union actors pursued their goals drastically differed and eventually diverged into two varieties of labor politics. Two decades of democratic strengthening in Korea have not stopped unionists from taking to the streets and frequently clashing with police forces. In contrast, union mobilization has become a seasonal event in Taiwan, and labor issues seem to have become integrated into the formal political processes, where politicians often campaign on labor-policy issues.

This book’s main goal is to explain the origins, processes, and outcomes of this variety of labor politics in East Asian democracies. As the title suggests, this study questions why Korean unions are militants whereas Taiwanese unions are partisans. As militants, Korean unions continue to resort to confrontational mobilization, but Taiwanese unions, as partisans, seek moderate methods to implement their labor agenda through the political process. What are the historical origins and political processes that have produced this divergence? And eventually, what has organized labor gained through these varied collective efforts in labor-reform politics under democratic governments in the last twenty years? For our more general understanding of labor politics, is militancy a fair manifestation of union strength and efficacy that leads to greater policy gains, or are we missing some important alternative strategies and hidden paths for labor movements? Finally, how does the Korea–Taiwan comparison deepen our theoretical understanding of democracy, democratic representation, and labor politics in a more general sense?

Whether labor militancy is enthusiastically applauded by leftist circles and antiglobalization activists or vehemently loathed by international investors and corporate managers, it represents more than the degree of union recalcitrance. Perhaps it tells more about democracy than we usually expect. If democratization is understood as a process of expanding the representation of previously excluded groups, labor militancy is a reflection of the identity of the insiders and outsiders of a democratic system. Frequent collective actions by workers on the shop floors or in the streets are an indication that they have found no organization to introduce their voice into the institutionalized political process. Moreover, strikes and demonstrations by unions are not without consequences, both political and economic. Insiders can affect the direction of policy formation and resource allocation, whereas outsiders cannot. The prolonged existence of disgruntled outsiders may result in an erosion of institutional stability and legitimacy. Also, volatility in labor relations often becomes a negative indicator of the national economy’s competitiveness and labor productivity, which could eventually worsen the bargaining conditions of labor. For these reasons, understanding labor militancy or its absence is more significant than labor militancy’s face value.

A Political Explanation: Labor Politics Is a Democratic Project

Several explanations have been offered to account for union militancy in Korea versus union moderation in Taiwan. These accounts converge on emphasizing the importance of the structural differences between these two economies and the structural strengths that buttress the labor actors. Korea is recognized for the dominance of large conglomerates, known as chaebols, whereas Taiwan’s economy is notable for the vibrancy of a large number of small- and medium-size enterprises. So, the argument goes, Korean unions that were formed in the big chaebol companies are better organized and exert greater leverage than do their counterparts in Taiwan. Taiwanese unions are presumed to be handicapped by collective-action problems because of their dispersion into numerous small firms. Additionally, organized as decentralized enterprise unions, Korean labor is often criticized for its habit of engaging in militant mobilization to pursue its parochial interests at the cost of macro-national consequences.

These accounts tell bits and parts of the labor-movement story but obviously not the whole account. It is true that Korean unions are organized at the firm level, mostly berthed in large conglomerates. Yet Taiwanese unions are the same. A close examination of the structural and organizational conditions that undergird labor unions in these two democracies, as this study will show, reveals that they share more similarities than differences. Regardless of the macro-structural differences, unions in both Korea and Taiwan are primarily organized in large firms, maintain a decentralized enterprise union structure with a similar level of unionization rates, and are equally divided into two national centers, one conservative and the other progressive. Therefore, the questions about why these union actors with so many similarities in their structural and organizational features have chosen different modes of mobilization to achieve their goals under democratic politics have remained unanswered.

To account for these differences in labor politics, this study builds upon the theoretical tradition that has viewed unions as political actors that constantly interact and negotiate with the political conditions in which they are situated (Lipset 1983; Collier and Collier 1991; Rueschemeyer, Stephens, and Stephens 1992; Collier 1999; Bartolini 2007). This approach is a clear departure from an economic perspective that interprets labor unions primarily as the embodiment of economic interests tied to their place within the economic structure (Rogowski 1989; Pontusson 1992; Hall and Soskice 2001). This economic perspective dismisses the significance of labor unions’ historical and political experiences and consequently errs by assuming that unions represent an intrinsic, essentialist labor interest. As collective actors develop their preferences and interests based on their position within the socioeconomic structure, they are concurrently shaped by given historical and political experiences.

When we think of working-class mobilizations in early-twentieth-century Europe, for instance, their interest in economic enhancement was closely tied to their political demand for universal enfranchisement (Bartolini 2007). However, workers’ protest in the third-wave democratization differed from earlier mobilizations depending on how workers saw their interests being infringed by authoritarian regimes (Seidman 1994; Collier 1999; Bellin 2000; Candland and Sil 2001). For South African workers, labor subjugation, racial apartheid, and authoritarian