Sisters, brothers - friends,

I am honoured, both personally and on behalf of the six hundred thousand members of the Korean Federation of Trade Unions (KCTU), and all other workers who have fought and devoted a large part of their lives, and in some cases all of their lives, to build the KCTU, to welcome you to Seoul and to stand here to speak as a keynote speaker.

At the same time, I am humbled by the stories of suffering and struggle each one of you has brought with you to this People’s Forum. This conference hall is overflowing with proud struggles and stories. Let us all congratulate each other and celebrate the struggle and solidarity that bring us together.

I would like to begin by posing a question. Is it unavoidable that we have to accept and submit to the reality known by the term globalisation?

I can say confidently and without any doubt that what we know today as globalisation is one that serves nothing but the interests of transnational capital. For peoples of this globe, it means pure catastrophe.

Korea is a good example. Liberalisation in Korea accelerated with her accession to the Organisation Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the establishment of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) trade regime.

Korea was swept into the neo-liberal globalisation project, a project which is propelled by the unrestricted flows of transnational financial capital. At the time, Korea was experiencing unprecedented trade deficits. These deficits were reduced through the use of speculative financial capital which poured into Korea. As a result, the value of the won (the Korean currency) - which should have fallen as a result of the enormous trade deficits - remained overvalued and strong. This enabled the business lords - the chaebols - to indulge in excessive and irresponsible spending. An all-embracing bubble was created. Once this bubble burst, the chaebols experienced a collapse in their profit margins which pushed these conglomerates over the edge into insolvency.

Foreign investors and speculators sensed danger. The time had come to cash in, grab, and run. Speculators began to withdraw their money from the stock exchange in concert and in frenzy. This precipitated the currency crisis which in turn led to a crisis now known in Korea as the “International Monetary Fund (IMF) Crisis”.

The physician, in the guise of the IMF, rushed to the scene of the accident with his ready-made prescriptions. The physician said, “What you need to do is to accelerate the neo-liberal drive and engage in further structural adjustment”. This translated as “more of the same which had caused the crisis in the first place”.

The medicine man’s advice resulted in large-scale bankruptcies and mass unemployment. Investment and consumer consumption froze and then took a nosedive. This downturn in the economy sharply affected imports, resulting in a radical and mammoth trade surplus. It also signalled the return of foreign capital. Korean foreign reserves began slowly to build up and the IMF and transnational banks were now able to secure a stable repayment on their loans and interests.

Transnational capital began to bag Korean companies at bargain base prices. Korean owned companies, banks, and public enterprises were bought up. In 1999, more than 36 trillion won [30 billion dollars] was earned by foreign investors in the form of speculative profit.

Three years have passed since the IMF squad landed in Korea. Yet the Korean economy finds itself again under heavy dark clouds.

Unemployment may have declined but the informal work sector makes up 53% of the total workforce. This figure is one of the worst in the world. Workers are forced to work and live under conditions of chronic insecurity. This has resulted in workers accepting lower wages and a brutal and intense work environment. We can hear the pained screams of workers all over the country. The gap between the rich and poor has widened to a level never seen before in Korean society since records began.

As of July this year, the volume of transnational capital ricocheting and flushing round in the Korean economy had expanded eight fold compared to the amount just prior to the IMF induced crisis. Foreign capital has now control of more than 30% of all listed shares on the Korean stock exchange, turning the Korean market into a high-rolling casino.

At the beginning of this year, stock market indicators rose to three times the level recorded in 1998. However, in less than one year the average share price level has dropped to half of the 1998 figure. The KOSDAQ, Korea’s second stock exchange, dropped from a high of 240 points at the beginning of the year to 75 points at the close of the year. This amounted to a drop of 75% in the value of shares quoted on the market.

Share price value has now become both the sole indicator of the strength of the Korean economy and the trip-wire for an attack on the lives and work conditions of the people of Korea. Put bluntly, if you sack workers, your share price goes up.

Ever faithful to the directives of the IMF, the Korean government intends to carry out the second phase of the structural adjustment programme. The government has already spent more than 100 trillion won in order to bail out banks and companies. It is planning to inject a further 50 trillion won for the second phase.

The government is intent on completely liberalising currency transactions and will remove all controls on foreign currency inflows and outflows. It will force banks to either merge or shut down. This will have the effect of creating megabanks with multiple business interests via the establishment of financial holding companies. It will privatise public enterprises and services, such as telecommunications and electricity, with a view to selling these off, most probably to transnational corporations. It will bring about greater privatisation of the banking sector. Those companies in receipt of public funds will also be sold off to foreign capital once they regain profitability. Those companies not in receipt of public funds and end up insolvent will be forced to shut down. We expect to see either large-scale closures or sell-offs at fire sale prices to foreign companies.

Either way, this will culminate in the massive down-scaling of the Korean workforce.

The incorporation of the Korean economy into the neo-liberal globalisation project, accelerated by IMF-engineered structural adjustment programmes, has meant the disintegration and collapse of the once independent foundations of the Korean economy.

It has been a process of continuous downgrading and destruction of the quality of life of the Korean people.

Is this phenomenon a catastrophe which only the Koreans are forced to suffer? No. It is a trend and reality which is dominating the lives of people across the globe.

Job Insecurity and the Trade Union Movement

On a worldwide scale, the exploitation of labour has intensified with no distinction made between workforces in the South or the North. We are seeing a global race to the bottom.

“Labour flexibility” has become the code word and command for massive retrenchment in the labour market and the destruction of once secure jobs. This has lead to massive unemployment and an extreme precariousness in working conditions. While the intensification of productivity is accelerating, wages are not rising to reflect this shift. In most Asian countries, it is extremely difficult to organise unions and in those where there is some guarantee of the right to organise, repression and attacks on trade union activities are escalating. Migrant workers are suffering even greater exploitation and neglect. Their position is exacerbated by increased xenophobia which, in turn, can be related to a rising sense of insecurity among the indigenous workforce.

If workers try to organise in order to voice their concerns, management threatens to move production to another country. This is a story familiar to those participating in this Forum, as you will hear from the sisters from the Thai Krieng Durable company who are participating in one of the Labour Forum workshops.

Women

The process of globalisation has caused the greatest suffering amongst women. When companies encounter economic pressures, the desire to improve profitability and the patriarchal mentality of these companies combine to target women as the first and priority victims of retrenchment. The majority of workers in the informal sector are women. They usually fall outside the protection of trade unions and their wages are usually less than half of what their formal sector male counterpart earns. At the same time, women workers are exposed to severe sexual harassment and violence in the workplace.

There has been an alarming increase in the trafficking of women, mainly into forced prostitution. The decimation of traditional communities, the collapse of agriculture, poverty, the scarcity of jobs, structural violence against women, profit driven businesses and the elevation of tourism as the major cash-earning industry combine to create and fuel this phenomenon of forced prostitution.

The Environment

The intensity of competition for profit, which is driven by the globalisation process, has resulted in the gross destruction of the environment and our delicate ecological balance. Worldwide, the ecological system is crumbling under the pressure of indiscriminate deforestation, intensive industrial development and massive dam construction projects.

At the micro-level, technological advances, driven by the desire to increase profits, is leading to genetic manipulation, which threatens the delicate bio-diversity of the globe. Damage to the environment and the ecological balance is threatening the very integrity and viability of all humanity.

Agriculture

Another phenomenon we are witnessing is the forced decimation and disappearance of small farm holdings. Small-scale farmers have been ’the stewards of the earth’. They are being driven off the land and airbrushed from our lexicon as the agricultural sector becomes the key target for liberalisation and commercialisation under the new WTO trade regime. Small-scale farmers are being ground into the dirt by the considerable power of transnational agribusiness, mainly originating from the United States (US) and Europe. They are suffering from the combination of crippling debt and the sustained attack of big business. The replacement of small-scale farmers by large agribusiness threatens food security. It will add to the pressures which are degrading the environment and the fine ecological balance.

Foreign Debt

Most Developing World nations are suffering from a chronic foreign debt crisis. The levels of indebtedness and insolvency are such that, were they treated as companies, the IMF would most likely declare them bankrupt and strike them off ’the Register of Nations’. This is in fact what may be happening. National sovereignty is being eroded. The rights of workers, women and children, together with the integrity and sanctity of the environment, are being decimated.

Conflict

This downward spiral in the quality of people’s lives and the disintegration of the social fabric has created a fertile ground for the nurturing of conflict between nations, ethnic groups, and various other identity groups.

With the intensification of conflicts, we are witnessing an unending series of small and large-scale wars. Armed conflicts and wars are resorted to as a means of ’conflict resolution’. This approach merely hides the real sources and causes of conflict. It rarely leads to resolution and very often aggravates the situation beyond it’s original context.

This intensification of conflict has been a boon to arms producers and traders (the majority of whom are based in the advanced industrialised countries of the West). There has been an acceleration in the arms race, which was thought to have had its day with the ’end’ of the Cold War. Furthermore, the US and Japanese initiative for National Missile Defence (NMD) and Theatre Missile Defence (TMD) is ushering in a new phase of global arms and military expansion. A large part of the economic well-being of the West is dependent upon this expansion.

We know - and we will learn in greater detail in the course of this Forum - that the neo-liberal globalisation project is driven by the unfettered movement of transnational capital, with the US government, the WTO, and the IMF acting as the main agents.

But, are the governments of Europe and Asia, whose heads will meet in the Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM) Tower (costing 1.5 trillion won to build), any different?

I am confident in saying no.

A recent document produced for the ASEM process - a document which emanated from the European Union (EU) - illustrates this. The Investment Promotion Action Plan (IPAP) contains recommendations and measures to promote investment between Europe and Asia. The document calls for the elimination of all obstacles to the free movement of capital. Under the list of Most Effective Measures for investment (MEMs), these include measures for a total removal of regulation on foreign currency transactions and to permit the transfer, in the original currency at the prevailing exchange rate, of company profits. It calls for widespread privatisation and the removal of all restrictions on foreign ownership of land and property. In suggesting improvements of a domestic economic environment and infrastructure, the document calls for a low corporate taxes, tariffs and indirect taxes regime. And it calls for ’ the absence of strikes’.

The demands of European capital-rich investors will translate into commands on Asian governments, and act as tools of oppression against the people and workers of the region.

Most of the ASEM governments are strongly in favour of launching a new round of negotiations at the WTO. Asian governments and European governments share the same zeal as the US and other agencies in the propagation and acceleration of the neo-liberal globalisation project.

The agents of neo-liberal globalisation tell us that there is no alternative. But, this is merely the rhetoric of those who are profiting from the misery of the masses.

We know there are alternatives, we feel that there must be alternatives and we do have alternatives.

First of all, we need to establish a common set of goals or values we all embrace and share and which we should either defend or seek to realise. Allow me to list some of those on which there has been extensive consensus.

– Basic rights for workers - regardless of gender, nationality (migrant or domestic) or status (documented or undocumented) must be guaranteed, upheld and respected. National laws and any international law or treaty must be amended, if necessary, to enshrine this core value.

– The integrity of the environment must be respected and guaranteed. Any development project must be made in consultation with and shaped round the needs of the very communities and people it affects rather than the policies of central governments or profit-hungry development companies.

– All nations should impose a tax on foreign currency transactions in order to eliminate the instability arising from speculative activities of transnational investors and to bring about a stable and sustained development of Developing countries. This must be accompanied by a complete cancellation of all Developing Countries’ debt which, in any case, pales into insignificance compared with the debt amassed by richer countries, like the US.

– The current policies for the elimination of currency controls, privatisation, and trade and investment liberalisation being pursued by the ASEM must be brought to an end.

– The WTO, IMF, World Bank, and other international economic institutions which have proved to be agencies of neo-liberal globalisation should be either dissolved, devolved, decommissioned or have their mandate thoroughly reformulated. (At the same time, other international institutions, such as the International Labour Organisation (ILO), must be empowered to contribute to the consolidation of the network of pluralist institutions of global governance).

The various regional, inter-regional, or bilateral trade and investment liberalisation treaties which grant extensive freedoms, rights, and power to both indigenous and foreign investors, while at the same time sacrificing the livelihood and rights of people and the integrity of the environment, must be revoked.

The NMD and TMD projects of the US and Japan, which will thrust the world towards a new arms race should be halted immediately.

Friends, you will remember the Battle of Seattle, which decorated the end of the last century. We know why more than 50,000 people gathered in the streets of Seattle. It was the long awaited proclamation of the people opposing the launch of a new round of liberalisation negotiations at the WTO, which would have taken the world into a new phase of the neo-liberal globalisation project. It marked the arrival on the international stage of people’s voice, alternatives, and activism for new alternatives.

To what extent the agents of neo-liberal globalisation are afraid of the emergence of this new global movement of people for alternatives is demonstrated by the vehemence with which they tried and continue to try to repress and demonise our struggle. They are trying dismiss the arrival on the global scene of this new force by defaming it, just as they tried to characterise the Battle of Seattle as a ’riot’.

But their attempt has failed. The struggle has moved on and is spreading across the globe - the struggle and our solidarity is globalising. We are seeing a new form of globalisation. The struggle has spread to Davos, Bangkok, Washington, Millau, Melbourne, and Prague. Similar struggles and forums, devoted to deepening our alternative vision, agenda, and strategies, will be held in Dhaka, Brazil and South Africa over the next few months.

Now the moment of struggle is here in Seoul, where the landslide of currency crises has given rise to a new wave of people’s struggles. We in Korea and all of us gathered here in Seoul must meet the challenge confronting us.

This speech will not be complete or make sense without an honest reflection and appraisal of our own trade union movement in Korea which I represent. This reflection, I hope, will be the basis for a sustained effort to build solidarity into the future.

The trade union movement in Korea has never been solely a ’trade union movement’ in the traditional sense. The worker’s struggle was at the centre of a broad social movement fighting against military dictatorship and for democratic change. The labour movement stood firm and was a key supporter of other people’s movements. We are proud of the kind of trade union movement we have built.

But we had and have many faults and limitations, which we endeavour to overcome. We have not been sufficiently active in defending the rights and livelihood of migrant workers and workers in the informal sector. We were not effective in preventing the women-first retrenchment policy pursued by employers in the early period of the economic crisis and IMF-prescribed structural adjustment programme. We turned a blind eye to the environmental destruction caused by profit-hungry employers. We were very much focused on the immediate problems which preoccupied us. We were not capable of building solidarity with the various people’s movements and struggles in other countries, in Asia and other developing countries.

We recognise that we have to change.

We know that the trade union movement cannot limit itself to the immediate and narrow economic concerns of their membership. Even in defending the most basic of workers rights, such a limited approach will fail before the onslaught of the forces of the neo-liberal globalisation project.

It is imperative that we embrace the issues of gender inequality, the degradation of the environment and the living conditions of farmers and the urban poor as the very concerns of the trade union movement.

All movements - workers, women, farmers, youth, cultural, environmental and religious - need to turn their attention to each other, broaden their horizons and concerns and consciously build the basis for a collective and common effort. All movements must face up to this fundamental challenge of the common struggle.

We know, also, that our struggles and movements cannot achieve what we set out to do by being purely and entirely occupied by the issues of our own individual countries, limiting our horizon to one’s own country.

While we should not lose sight of the specific issues and struggles within our own countries, all our struggles and efforts need to be linked to the broader global movement through the various networks and communities.

Since the Seattle encounter, we are witnessing a growing momentum of solidarity amongst the trade union movement, women’s movement, environment movement and the Third World solidarity movements. The neo-liberal globalisation project, through its indiscriminate attacks upon labour rights, women’s rights, the environment and the right to development, has brought about an unintended result of laying the foundation for solidarity among all the movements devoted to these issues.

Our task is to move forward together building on the basis of common experience and shared vision.

We may experience difficulties as we recognise differences in each other’s modes of operation, forms of organisation and even differences in perspectives. We should not shirk away from recognising the differences.

When we know what makes us different, it will then be possible to identify and arrive at a shared understanding of the very grounds on which our agreement, common commitment and solidarity are based. This will form the basis for our empowerment, which will not only enable us to overcome the neo-liberal globalisation project, but to pioneer a new future built on our common dreams.

Thank you