Ulsan (South Korea), Feb 15: A life-and-death struggle for jobs will sweep through South Korea this year when massive industrial layoffs hit many work sites, labour leaders in this heavy industry town said at the weekend."Although layoffs have become legal, we'll fight until we die to resist any attempt to fire us," said Ahn Hyun-ho, union leader of Hyundai Precision and Industry Co in Ulsan.
"We understand how serious our economic hardship is and that our labour market needs to change, but economic restructuring should start with reform of the chaebol structure," Ahn said.
Union leaders in Ulsan said the country's current economic crisis was mainly a result of failure to reform the business conglomerates, called chaebol in South Korea.
A chaebol's founding family commands almost dictatorial power over its units. Their expansion into non-core and unprofitable businesses through enormous debt leveraging -- using one unit to guarantee the debt of others -- has been cited as a key factor in thecountry's economic crisis.
The southeastern city of Ulsan, with a population of one million, is home to industrial units of the giant Hyundai Group, including container maker Hyundai Precision, Hyundai Motor Co and shipbuilder Hyundai Heavy Industries Co.
"Reform must start with the introduction of systems through which the owning family's power can be checked," said Hyundai Motor's Union leader Park You-ki.
"Workers have already witnessed their real income decrease by 30 per cent, since late last year, but are still unfairly asked to sacrifice more," said Park. "But chaebol owners would not sacrifice anything and insist on layoffs."
Under a reform law passed in parliament on Saturday, the conglomerates are required to end the practice of mutual debt guarantees and adopt international accounting practices.
Workers relied on overtime before the country's debt crisis surfaced late last year. But now falling orders have drastically reduced that, hurting incomes, he said.Last week, the 550,000-strongKorean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) cancelled a planned general strike but said it would continue to oppose legalising layoffs.
The decision, made just several hours before some 100,000 union workers downed tools, was not because of a change in the KCTU's stance over the layoffs issue but a failure to coordidnate the strike, another union leader in Ulsan said.
Making the local labour market more flexible was a key reform mandate for a record $58.35 billion bailout arranged late last year for the country by the International Monetary Fund.
President-elect Kim Dae-jung appeared to have won a historic concession from the hardline KCTU after it agreed with business and government negotiators to legislation making layoffs easier.
But three days later, KCTU rank and file leaders rejected the agreement and forced top leaders to resign, sending local Financial markets into a tailspin.The national assembly passed the labour reform law late on Saturday.
Labour leaders in Ulsan, where Union workers atHyundai Group units number some 68,000 out of the city's 139,000 manufacturing workers, said unions will be able to cooperate with management in layoffs once mutual trust was established.They said trust has been undermined by the management denying Union access to company data or participation in affairs relating to personnel management.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
