[Reporter’s Notebook] The Government Is Not the 'Enemy' of the KCTU

by Choi Taewon

Published 17 Jul.2023 10:56(KST)

Updated 31 Jul.2023 14:05(KST)

[Reporter’s Notebook] The Government Is Not the 'Enemy' of the KCTU

In April 2013, I came across a shocking video. When a North Korean soldier shouted, "Let's tear Kim Kwan-jin apart and kill him!" fierce dogs attacked a scarecrow with a photo of Kim Kwan-jin, then Minister of National Defense. Another similar video showed soldiers opening fire on a target with Kim’s photo after the order, "Shoot the traitor Kim Kwan-jin!" The tattered target was even hit by an anti-tank rocket and destroyed.

Ten years later, in July 2023, a similar scene unfolded right in the heart of Seoul. It was at the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU)'s general strike victory rally. They prepared a huge block of ice with photos of President Yoon Suk-yeol and Police Chief Yoon Hee-geun attached. When the MC shouted, "It’s Yoon Suk-yeol! Let’s smash his head first," the ice block was shattered by large hammers wielded by strike participants. Slogans like "The police chief is a dog of the regime" were shouted against Chief Yoon.

The KCTU’s two-week general strike ended on the 15th. Unlike before, there were no Molotov cocktails or spears. However, the backward nature of the rally remained. While the act of harming photos of specific individuals was similar, there is an important difference. North Korea is an enemy explicitly stated in the defense white paper and confronts us across the Demilitarized Zone, whereas the KCTU is part of the two major legal labor unions representing the country’s labor sector. If their true goal was to improve labor rights, the KCTU should have requested peaceful and rational dialogue rather than violent mockery directed at an enemy. President Yoon has already stated several times that he will never yield to threats from political strikes and illegal protests.

The fear that the strike would degenerate into a "political strike" became reality. Demands for regime resignation and stopping the discharge of contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean took center stage over claims for workers’ rights. These issues are far removed from labor rights expansion. Voices calling for regime resignation overshadowed labor-related demands such as opposition to the 69-hour workweek and minimum wage increases.

Criticism has already begun among some KCTU members regarding the radical behavior and political strikes unrelated to union members’ interests. If the union is truly for workers, now is the time to focus on dialogue, compromise, and lawful labor movements to advance labor rights.