Statement by the Committee to Support the GM Daewoo Irregular Workers’ Struggle

1. On 2 September 2007, irregular workers employed by in-house subcontractors at the GM Daewoo Auto & Technology Company (GM Daewoo) factory in Bupyeong established the GM Daewoo Irregular Workers Chapter of the Korean Metal Workers Union (KMWU), Incheon Local Branch. From the time of its founding the management of GM Daewoo has refused to recognize the union chapter and has instead carried out mass layoffs, refusing new contracts to workers when the in-house sub-contractor who employed them closed on 30 September 2007 and pressuring others to quite their jobs. For over three years now, the dismissed workers have fought for reinstatement, conducting an outdoor sit-in protest. Finally, on 1 December 2010 two dismissed workers climbed the 10 meter-high arch that stands over the front entrance to the Bupyeong factory and began a ’high-altitude protest’. They have remained on the arch despite the freezing weather for over 30 days. In addition, on December 20, the President of the Irregular Workers Chapter began a hunger strike, which has now gone on for over ten days.

2. The Irregular Workers Chapter is demanding union recognition, reinstatement of workers dismissed as a means to break the union and regularization of irregular workers working at GM Daewoo. These are just demands. The right of workers to form and join trade unions of their choosing is protected under the South Korean Constitution, a fact which GM Daewoo is ignoring. Moreover, the courts have recently recognized that workers employed by in-house subcontractors should be considered directly employed by the company for which they actually produce.

3. Several recent trials, including one against former GM President Nick Reilly, have led to rulings that recognize employment by in-house subcontractors as, in fact, agency or in South Korea, ’dispatch’, work. Dispatch work refers to the situation in which a worker is hired by an outside agency but is ’dispatched’ to work for large company. This employment scheme allows the company for whom the workers actually work to avoid responsibility for their wages and conditions and, as such, is outlawed in the manufacturing sector. Nonetheless, in-house subcontracting is widespread among South Korean manufactures.

4. Between 22 December 2003 and 26 January 2005, former GM Daewoo President Reilly signed contracts with 6 in-house sub-contractors, which employed a total of 847 workers. On 23 December 2010, the Changwon District Court found that these workers were, in fact, illegal dispatch workers and that Reilly was therefore guilty of breaking the law. Accordingly, he was fined 7 million won and the 6 in-house sub-contractors 4 million won each. This ruling comes after a guilty verdict in the Supreme Court case against the Hyundai Motors Ulsan Plant on 22 July 2010 and the Seoul High Court case concerning the Hyundai Motors Asan Plant on 12 November 2010. In these cases as well, the courts ruled that workers employed by in-house sub-contractors were illegal dispatch workers. They concluded that these workers should therefore be considered directly employed by Hyundai Motors, and should be regularized (given job security and equal benefits and wages with other regular workers) in accordance with Korean law, which requires that irregular workers be regularized after 2 years of employment. The Korean courts have recognized that companies such as GM Daewoo, which make use of in-house sub-contract workers, must take responsibility for them as their actual employer, yet GM Daewoo continues to refuse to do so.

5. What is more, GM Daewoo and local law enforcement have responded to the irregular workers’ high-altitude protest with severe repression. Police and members of the GM Daewoo labor management team have blocked supports’ attempts to lift weatherproofing equipment up to the workers on top of the arch. They have thus been forced to bear -10°C weather without adequate protection. Forcing this life-threatening situation on the workers is a severe violation of their human rights. We, therefore, urgently demand that GM Daewoo engage in earnest negotiations to address the demands of the irregular workers and at the same time protects the basic human rights of the workers engaged in the high-altitude protest.

6. Recognizing the severity of the problem, civil society and human rights organizations, legal professionals, academics, religious leaders and politicians in the Incheon area formed the Committee to Support the GM Daewoo Irregular Workers’ Struggle (hereafter ’support committee’) and requested dialogue with GM Daewoo President Mike Arcamone. On December 16, Incehon Mayor Song Yeong-gil visited President Arcamone and asked that he find a suitable solution to the irregular workers’ demands. President Arcamone has, however, made no move towards solving the problem and is now enjoying his winter vacation. He has refused to meet with the support committee, rejected the KMWU’s request for negotiations and cut of all channels for dialogue.

7. GM Daewoo is currently receiving rent-free use of the site for its Cheongra Technology Institute and other benefits from the city of Incheon. Its circumstances have improved enough that it was recently able to pay off a trillion won debt to the Korean Development Bank. Yet President Arcamone has pushed irregular workers onto the street, while refusing to make any effort to address the demands of the dismissed workers. In response, the Incheon City Council adopted a resolution on December 23 calling on GM Daewoo to find a suitable solution to the irregular workers problem.

8. The Supreme Court has now recognized that the practice of in-house sub-contracting that is rampant in the manufacturing sector is actually illegal dispatch employment. All of South Korean society has now realized that workers hired and exploited in this illegal manner should be directly employed as regular workers. It is time for GM Daewoo President Arcamone to make the same recognition, reinstate dismissed workers and regularize the irregular workers working for him in accordance with the Supreme Court’s ruling. We will continue to protest using all means available to us until the workers’ demands are met.

2010. 12. 24
Committee to Support the GM Daewoo Irregular Workers’ Struggle

The GM Daewoo Irregular Workers Union’s Struggle: From the establishment of the union (2007) to the High-altitude Sit-in Protest (2010)

2007: Establishment of the Irregular Workers Union, Violence, Layoffs and Labor Repression

On 2 September 2007, irregular workers employed by in-house subcontractors at the GM Daewoo Auto & Technology Company (GM Daewoo) factory in Bupyeong founded the GM Daewoo Irregular Workers Chapter of the Korean Metal Workers’ Union (hereafter ’the irregular workers union’). Through the union, they sought to put an end to the outsourcing then underway at the factory, which was leading to job insecurity, and win a collective bargaining agreement that improved their work conditions. Despite the fact that the Labor Standards Act protects the right of all workers to form labor unions, GM Daewoo responded only with violence and repression. As soon the irregular workers union was formed, members of the GM Daewoo labor-management team viciously attacked irregular worker union members and their regular worker comrades who were conducting outreach on factory grounds. They tried to create an atmosphere of fear in order to stop the over 1,000 GM Daewoo irregular workers from joining the union. After the attack, management suddenly fired on all the officers of the irregular workers union, supposedly as disciplinary measure against the officers for having failed to submit their academic records. On September 30, an in-house subcontractor that employed many of the union members announced it was closing its doors and drove 35 workers out onto the street.

On October 30, the irregular workers union pitched a tent and began a sit-in protest on company grounds protesting GM Daewoo’s violence and the dismissals resulting from the closure of the in-house contractor. GM Daewoo refused negotiations. Union members responded by climbing a CCTV tower in front of the factory on December 27 and remaining there in what is known in South Korea as a ’high-altitude sit-in protest’.

2008: GM Daewoo’s Continued Attack against the Irregular Workers Union

The irregular workers union continued its tent sit-in protest. It also continued the high-altitude sit-in protest, which went on for 135 days.

While this struggle was going on, the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) issued a verdict confirming that the firing of 3 irregular workers who had been employed by GM Daewoo in-house subcontractor Uksan, was a unfair labor practice. They were thereafter reinstated. 7 other irregular workers who had been laid-off when Speed Power World, the in-house subcontract who employed them, closed down, were also reinstated through negotiations between the irregular workers union and another in-house subcontractor, which were mediated by the KMWU GM Daewoo Local Branch and went on between July and October of 2008. Central officers and active members of the irregular workers union, however,were denied reinstatement.

While making a show of negotiations, GM Daewoo continued to attack the irregular workers union. The management spread the 7 former employees of Speed Power World, all union members, among 5 different in-house subcontractors in order to disperse the union’s power. After workers were reinstated, they were either told they would only be given work after the promised to disaffiliate from the union or were forced to quit through intense surveillance and collective ostracization.
In December 2008, with the global financial crisis deepening, GM Daewoo began to push roughly 3.1 trillion won worth of damages arising from management’s engagement in derivatives transactions onto workers by reducing its operations.

2009: Mass layoffs and continued struggle

Beginning on May 1, GM Daewoo forced the roughly one thousand irregular workers remaining in the factory to take rotating vacation time with no pay. It soon became impossible for most of them to survive working only one out every three or even six months. Faced with increasing economic hardships and under pressure from the in-house contractors who employed them, most of the irregular workers had quit by September.

On September 30, the ten union members who were still working were laid off when the in-house subcontractor who employed them closed down and they were denied rehire by another subcontractor. The workers appealed to the Ministry of Labor for assistance, but were told that closure of a subcontractor was not grounds for relief and also that they could not make a case against GM Daewoo because the company was not officially the employer with whom they signed contracts. In this case it was not only GM Daewoo, but also the government who stood at the forefront of repression against the irregular workers union.

2010: Desperate High-altitude Sit-in Protest

The workers did not give up, however. Instead, they strengthened their struggle, using a wide range of tactics. They filed of a petition for correction of discrimination with the National Human Rights Commission concerning the May layoffs. They also organized a supplication march (during which protesters prostate themselves once for every three steps) calling on GM Daewoo to recognize its responsibility as the actual employer of the irregular workers and to reinstate them. In July they organized a rally commemorating the 1000^th day of the tent sit-in protest. In September they marched demanding regularization of illegal dispatch workers and prohibition of the expansion of dispatch agencies. And in October, they held a protest in front of the Northern Seoul branch of the Ministry of Labor.

On 1 December 2010, two members of the irregular workers union began another high-altitude sit-in protest, this time on the arch that stands 10 meters above the front entrance to the GM Daewoo factory in Bupyeong. Calling for abolition of illegal dispatch work, reinstatement of fired workers and regularization, they have vowed not to come down until their demands are met. They have now lived on the top of the arch for over 30 days, bearing the cramped space and brutal winter weather.

In addition, Sin Hyeon-chang, President of the GM Daewoo Irregular Workers Chapter, began a hunger strike on December 20, which has now gone on for over 10 days. Far from meeting the union members’ demands, however, GM Daewoo has responded by sending hired thugs and members of its labor-management team to cut the line used to deliver food up to the protesting workers and raid the sit-in protest site set up nearby by supporters. Ignoring a resolution adopted by the Incheon City Council and labor and civil society organizations calling on the company to engage in honest dialogue with the workers, GM Daewoo persists in its stance that it has no responsibility to negotiate since it is not the official employer with whom the workers signed contracts.

For background on the GM Daewoo irregular workers’ struggle, see the attached document.