South Korean Cultural Ecology - 1905 to 1990
Part 2: "Change to the Industrial Society" - Page 14

H. Labor Unrest

The Confucian ideal seems a far off out-dated theme when faced with these facts. Labor disputes between 1987 and 1989 reached more than 7100 throughout Korea. The number of labor unions doubled from 2,725 to 7,358 in the same period. Hyundai ran its company like a military outfit, requiring a regulation Hyundai haircut and uniform. Founder Chug Ju-Yung took it "as a personal insult that any worker should strike for better conditions and wages." The Korean government tried to project an image of an impartial arbiter but reverted to being the protector of the Chaebol.

Disputes for 1989 are for the first 10 months only.

Instead of reaping the respect of the Confucian worker, the government and the Chaebol harvested the bitter resentment of the class-conscious proletarian who could not care less if the export machine broke down. A labor leader spoke for many when she said, "The government says the economy is successful. But only a few benefit from the economy. There is nothing in it for us." In the popular mind, the state had become captive to the Chaebol, and this struck a massive blow at the ideological validity of the state exhortations to "sacrifice for the national good" and "promote growth first, redistribute later." President Park reasoned that "for such poor people like the Koreans, on the verge of near starvation, economics take precedence over politics in their daily lives and enforcing democracy is meaningless." Park also felt that a few mammoth enterprises would be easier to control than hundreds or thousands of small or medium enterprises. Of the 35,971 firms registered in the manufacturing sector in 1982, firms belonging to the top 30 chaebols numbered only 271 (less than 1%), yet these firms account for 40.7% of sales. The ten largest chaebols accounted for 72% of total sales in 1987. South Korea has the greatest gap between the rich and the poor of any industrializing nations and the gap is not closing.