The KSEC Union and the Minju Labor Movement Narrative

The KSEC, which was built in 1937 at Yŏngdo, a small island off Pusan, was the most advanced shipbuilding facility in South Korea until the early 1970s, when Hyundai and other large conglomerates (chaebŏl) entered the field. As happened with many other major companies in Korea during the immediate postliberation years (1945–48), a union local affiliated with the leftist National Council of Korean Labor Unions (the Chosŏn Nodong Chohap Chŏn'guk P'yŏngŭihoe; hereafter, the Chŏnp'yŏng) was active at the yard until its demise around 1947, when it fell victim to the red purges. A new union, founded sometime after the 1953 promulgation of labor laws, only became a force at the yard around 1958 when it waged a successful strike demanding back wages. The union was further empowered following the April Revolution of 1960, which toppled the dictatorial Rhee regime. But the military junta after the May 1961 coup d'état led by General Park Chung Hee disbanded all political organizations, including trade unions, revised existing labor laws in 1963, and organized, from the top down, a new national union federation, the Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU), as the only officially sanctioned umbrella organization of industrial workers. Thereafter, the KSEC local, reorganized in 1963, became a company-friendly union.

This story follows the contours of a common narrative of South Korean labor history, recounting how a militant, leftist movement was snuffed out by the right-wing Rhee regime, backed by the United States, and again trampled upon by the military rule of Park Chung Hee. In this line of understanding, only the rise of a very new kind of labor activism, dubbed the “minju (democratic) labor movement,” during the 1970s and 1980s brought about significant change in the South Korean labor movement. This minju union movement laid the foundation for the great upsurge of labor activism in the summer of 1987 and the empowerment of organized labor thereafter. Close inspection of the local scene, however, reveals events and stories that do not jibe with this master narrative of the South Korean labor movement. The KSEC shipyard union on Yŏngdo shows an unexpected development, the growth of a militant, democratic, and powerful union during the 1960s under Park's military rule, a full decade before the conventional starting point of the minju labor movement.

The hegemonic minju narrative of the labor movement, from which the KSEC case diverged so dramatically, involves the application to the labor movement of the Manichean, good-versus-evil discourse of the democracy movement that demonizes the Park regime. The minju narrative categorically labels the government-sanctioned FKTU trade union movement “ŏyong,” meaning anti-labor, pro-company, and anti-democratic. In that line of thinking, powerless South Korean workers, hemmed in by the hegemony of anticommunism fused with the “growth-first” ideology of rapid capitalist development, had to fight an uphill battle against both the anticommunist and authoritarian developmental state and the wishes of their local and upper-level unions. According to the minju narrative, it was the self-immolation of garment worker Chŏn T'aeil in November 1970 that inspired a historic alliance of workers, students, and intellectuals, and through that alliance, called the nohak yŏndae, a new kind of a democratic labor movement was born. Since the 1980s the minju movement narrative has become dominant in understanding and imagining the whole postcolonial process of struggle over nation-building strategies, and in labor studies the power and weight of the minju movement narrative runs particularly deep, not only in activist literature but also in academic works.

As a result of the overwhelming power of the particular historical perspective of the minju movement that places a great new beginning in the emergence of the minju labor movement in the 1970s, the period prior to it has been generally downplayed in the literature. Nevertheless, there are exceptions to this trend, works that deal with labor politics of the 1950s and 1960s (Choi Reference Choi1989; Im Reference Im2007; Sam Soo Kim Reference Kim1993, Reference Kim and Yŏn'guwŏn1999; Ogle Reference Ogle1973, Reference Ogle1990). And building on these earlier studies, some recent works raise the possibility that the radical postliberation struggle might have had lasting influence on the development of the 1950s and 1960s labor movement and point to the existence of radical strains of labor activism in the period (J. Kim Reference Kim2007, Reference Kim, Chonggu, Chunyŏp, Won, Wŏnch'ŏl, Jun, Keongil, Hyŏnsŏn, Hŭiyŏng and Sunyŏng2009; Keongil Kim Reference Kim, Chonggu, Chunyŏp, Won, Wŏnch'ŏl, Jun, Keongil, Hyŏnsŏn, Hŭiyŏng and Sunyŏng2009; Yonggi Kim Reference Kim1997; H. Nam Reference Nam2009; Song Reference Song2004). Based on case studies of unions and utilizing oral history materials, new works problematize the conventional characterization of the 1950s South Korean organized labor movement as “ŏyong,” under which workers and unions were powerless except for some high-level “labor brokers” tied to politicians (J. Kim Reference Kim, Chonggu, Chunyŏp, Won, Wŏnch'ŏl, Jun, Keongil, Hyŏnsŏn, Hŭiyŏng and Sunyŏng2009; Keongil Kim Reference Kim, Chonggu, Chunyŏp, Won, Wŏnch'ŏl, Jun, Keongil, Hyŏnsŏn, Hŭiyŏng and Sunyŏng2009). In the same vein, my work (H. Nam Reference Nam2009), as noted above, shows that in certain sectors South Korean industrial workers were able to rebuild a vibrant movement at the worksite level during the 1960s by utilizing favorable legal, institutional, and cultural legacies of the colonial and postliberation labor struggle.

The minju narrative clearly captures important aspects of recent South Korean history, but it exaggerates the novelty and distorts the dynamics of the labor and national history of the postwar era. In particular it overemphasizes the role of individual actors like Chŏn T'aeil and the influence of intellectuals in sparking labor activism, downplaying the complexity of the terrain of labor politics, especially at the local and regional levels. The history of the KSEC union and local progressives recounted here reveals traces of alternative discourses and frustrated dreams that have been displaced and dissipated by minju movement narratives in the historiography of the South Korean labor movement. It invites us to contemplate the possibilities that were being imagined by a group of industrial workers and their community supporters in the 1960s.

The Anticommunist Labor Movement and the KSEC UnionFootnote ³

A central pillar of the minju narrative, which paints the decades before the 1970s as a “dark era,” is the prevailing assumption in the literature that a brutal civil war, the Korean War (1950–53), had an overwhelmingly dampening effect on progressive social movements (M. Kim Reference Kim2002). According to this mainstream view, the war experiences and wartime exigencies allowed the Rhee regime to engrave a deep fear of the violent power of the anticommunist state and effectively purge radical elements from society. In the barren political landscape that remained, organized labor became a political tool of the dictatorial Rhee regime. In my previous study (H. Nam Reference Nam2009), I problematize this view by showing how the political environment of the 1950s bristled with progressive energy and how some labor leaders, such as Chŏn Chinhan, strove to incorporate labor rights into an anticommunist national agenda. During the Korean War itself, workers' strikes, textile strikes in particular, provided crucial momentum for the political struggle to legislate a fairly progressive set of labor laws in 1953, and industrial workers, including those at the KSEC yard, soon learned to utilize this relatively favorable legal framework of industrial relations established by these labor laws. By the late 1950s, in the midst of rising worker militancy, we even see the emergence within organized labor of a movement to democratize the upper-level leadership of the national labor federation.

The history of the KSEC union, as we have seen, begins with a communist Chŏnp'yŏng-affiliated local. Most of the several hundred senior workers who had been employees at the yard since the colonial period initially joined the Chŏnp'yŏng local, which actively participated in the leftist labor movement, including the general strike of September 1946 (Yonggi Kim Reference Kim1997, 7). In the aftermath of the red purges, those who were labeled leftists were involuntarily recruited into the National Guidance League (the Kungmin Podo Yŏnmaeng). When the Korean War broke out, the former Chŏnp'yŏng unionists at the yard, now organized into the League, barely escaped execution while at the very least, tens of thousands of League members were massacred by the police and the military in the southern part of the country (Kijin Kim Reference Kim2002). What saved their lives was a plea by the yard's current and former presidents, one a confidant of President Rhee, the other a former navy chief of staff, that these workers' skills were essential for servicing war vessels (Pak and Pak Reference Pak and Mikyŏng2009, 56). The chilling war experience muzzled labor activism at the KSEC yard for a while, but by the late 1950s the KSEC union began to show renewed signs of activism. The successful 1958 strike over back pay, in particular, generated strong support from the community and the larger society, which showed sympathy toward workers' claims to a secure livelihood.

The leader of the reactivated KSEC union was Im Hansik, a senior machinist, who had taken the side of the right-wing union federation early on, which, together with management, tried to demolish the Chŏnp'yŏng local at the yard (Yonggi Kim Reference Kim1997, 16–17). Im was known to be a follower of Chŏn Chinhan. Chŏn, a nationalist activist during the colonial period, led the right-wing crusade against the Chŏnp'yŏng, unleashing violent attacks by youth groups when deemed necessary (Im Reference Im2007, 100–35). Yet under his leadership right-wing organized labor set down a quite progressive platform espousing workers' rights, and fought to insert in the first constitution of the country radical pro-labor clauses, including workers' rights to “profit sharing” in privately owned firms and to participation in the management of firms. As national assemblyman, Chŏn played a major role in passing the labor law bills of 1953, which set up a liberal labor relations system similar to that of Japan and the United States.

Chŏn, like many other progressive politicians of the era, espoused a platform that warned against the dangers of both “red imperialism” (communism) and “white imperialism” (unbridled, “monopoly” capitalism) and advocated an economy planned and managed by the state. Critical views of the capitalist system like Chŏn's were still familiar to South Koreans living in the 1950s. The radical atmosphere of the immediate postcolonial period, in which even the most conservative parties had to accept the legitimacy of a thorough land reform and of nationalizing major industries, was not a distant memory. In fact, anticommunist yet progressive ideas continued to have a presence in the South Korean political arena and within social movements from the time of liberation on, and Chŏn's ideas constituted a part of this broader trend. In the vision of anticommunist labor leaders, such as Chŏn Chinhan, a new form of capitalism that had workers' interests at heart was an obtainable goal, once the threat of communism was eliminated. In their understanding, there was ample room to negotiate for workers' rights and interest in the emerging anticommunist politics of the era.Footnote ⁴

Im Hansik embodied this Janus-faced legacy of the anticommunist labor movement of the early postcolonial era. Although an anticommunist activist who played a role in breaking the Chǒnp'yǒng-affiliated local, Im Hansik turned out to be a committed unionist, and his career shows how the legacy of the anticommunist labor movement is more complex than a “conservative” versus “progressive” or “anti-labor” (ŏyong) versus “pro-labor” (minju) dichotomy does justice to. In fact, a belief in the compatibility of healthy capitalist development and an energetic trade union movement was part and parcel of the “liberal democracy” (chayu minjujuŭi; free or liberal democracy) imagined by many Korean union workers and activists. Developments at the KSEC yard in the 1960s, which we turn to next, show further expansion of this labor-centered imaginary, in which anticommunism circumscribed the thoughts and actions yet failed to quell the democratic spirit and voices of many workers.

The 1960s Context for the Labor Movement

The successes of the KSEC union between 1964 and 1969 occurred at a particular juncture in South Korean history in which not only the state's political and economic strategies but also people's feelings and perceptions of the world around them were in great flux. The 1960s, the first decade of the Park regime, was a time when the government was still “flirting with democracy” in labor activist and scholar George Ogle's keen observation (Ogle Reference Ogle1990, 22–23), and progressive undercurrents carried over from previous decades were still a force. The “Growth First” developmentalist ideology had yet to achieve a hegemonic position in South Korea, a position that would require immense ideological campaigns like the Saemaŭl Movement, and the materialization of the promises of the export drive strategy through impressive rates of growth and earnings in dollars during the 1970s. The mid-to-late 1960s was a time when South Korean nationalist intellectuals went through significant ideological bifurcation, as the anticommunist pro-growth ideology of the Park regime was being consolidated through fierce political struggle against oppositional visions of a nationalistic and democratic path to development (Chung Reference Chung2004; Hong Reference Hong2004). Park Chung Hee's turn to the authoritarian Yusin system in 1972 and the emergence of radical student and democracy movements countering it were the 1970s manifestation and escalation of this earlier struggle.

The labor movement of the late 1960s saw an upsurge in labor militancy in both export and non-export sectors and among both organized and unorganized workers. The series of strikes at the KSEC yard in 1968 and 1969 was part of this rising tide of labor militancy, which, coupled with the serious economic problems the Park regime was facing at the time, contributed to the impetus and rationale behind the regime's move toward full-blown authoritarian rule. The self-immolation of Chŏn T'aeil in 1970 symbolically marked the transition in the labor movement from the more experimental and cooperative labor politics of the 1960s to a confrontational politics of the 1970s, in which a Manichean “us (workers and their student/intellectual allies) versus them (the FKTU and the government)” thinking became entrenched. The heyday of the democratic KSEC union from 1964 to 1969 represented a time before the democratic promises of Park Chung Hee began to lose resonance.

Hŏ Chaeŏp, who served as president of the union from 1964 to 1969, presided over the apogee of KSEC union activism as the union developed into one of the strongest and most democratically run unions in South Korea. Regular workers at the KSEC made an epochal decision in 1965 to embrace temporary workers as full members of the union, an uncommon act of solidarity in the labor movement both then and now. By 1967 temporary workers occupied over half of the union representative positions (Pak and Pak Reference Pak and Mikyŏng2009, 36–37). Rank-and-file members demonstrated enthusiasm for union affairs, buoyed by continuing success in labor disputes, and strongly endorsed the principles of internal democracy. Wages and benefits were not the only issues on the table. Issues of the scope of workers' control over work and break time, and personnel issues including disciplining and hiring, were also thrust into labor-management negotiations by the union.

Strong community support and the sympathy toward union actions shown by the media and local government units seem to have been particularly important for the union's success. Participation of workers' family members, especially wives and mothers, in KSEC sit-in strikes was legendary (Kwŏn Reference Kwŏn and Wiwŏnhoe2004, 43). In the 1968 sit-in strike, in union officials' estimation, fear on the part of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) and the police that the sit-in could escalate into a people's riot forced them to pressure the company to agree to workers' demands (Kwŏn interview 2006b; H. Nam Reference Nam2009, 67–68). The coverage of KSEC labor disputes by local media was generally sympathetic to the union in this period. Local papers ran investigative reports on KSEC strikes that were clearly favorable to workers, and editors and reporters showed support to the union (Kwŏn interview 2006a, 2009; Pak interview 2007; Pak and Pak Reference Pak and Mikyŏng2009, 44–45). Pak recalls, “in those days conscientious intellectuals in Pusan and the KSEC union were connected in a way each could read the other's minds (isim chŏnsim)” (Pak and Pak Reference Pak and Mikyŏng2009, 45). The decisions by the Pusan Mayor's Office and the Pusan Regional Labor Committee on the legality of unions' actions during the 1960s usually fairly interpreted the articles of the labor laws, and KSEC union officials did not show much concern over potential anti-labor bias in these institutions.

Another important factor, acknowledged by participants, was the stellar anticommunist credentials of the union's president Hŏ Chaeŏp. Hŏ's case exemplifies the complex meanings of anticommunism in Korean society. Hŏ came to the yard following Yi Yŏngjin, his superior in the military, when Yi assumed the presidency of the KSEC in 1961. Pak Chŏngbu tapped him as a possible candidate for the union president's role, and once in that position Hŏ showed an unflagging commitment to labor's cause. Although a proven anticommunist war veteran, Hŏ became a committed leader of the union movement, which he understood as principled action to uphold “democracy.” Because of his presence, the KSEC union probably escaped persecution by the KCIA, which kept a watchful eye on union activities (Kwŏn interview 2001, 2006a; Pak and Pak Reference Pak and Mikyŏng2009, 151). Ex-army officer Hŏ Chaeŏp's attitudes and society's response to the militant activism of the KSEC union hint at the breadth and depth of democratic and progressive undercurrents in South Korea at this time, characteristics that seem to be particularly pronounced in the Pusan region, a subject explored in the next section.

KSEC Unionists and Yŏngdo Progressives

Although it is clear that the community of Yŏngdo rallied for the union in the numerous labor strikes during the 1960s, the thousands of pages of extant KSEC union documents of the period (including detailed meeting minutes, daily logs, union correspondence, and public statements) reveal precious little about the links between active union members and the community. Connecting the dots between KSEC union activists and potential allies and supporters in the community and in the region has required careful study of oral history interviews collected in existing oral history archives and others that I conducted myself over the past several years. Especially helpful were the oral history transcripts that have been produced in significant numbers during the past two decades as part of the government-sponsored effort to record and commemorate the past democratization movement.Footnote ⁵

Among all the KSEC union officials whose voices we hear in the pages of union meeting minutes, Pak Chŏngbu's often stands out as one most influenced by a leftist movement background. His colleagues at the KSEC recall him as “a progressive (chinbojŏk) person” (Pak Reference Wiwŏnhoe2004, 303). As we have seen, company managers were wary of Pak's influence over Hŏ Chaeŏp and apprehensively mentioned Pak's link to the Republican Party. Testimonies by Pak Insang and Kwŏn Odŏk regarding Pak Chŏngbu's link to the Chŏnp'yŏng local at the yard helped solve the mystery of Pak's leftist tendencies. But how did a former Chŏnp'yŏng unionist and a long-time metalworker end up being linked to President Park's party? And how was he able to emerge as a key leader in the KSEC union movement in the 1960s despite his left-wing background?

After combing through oral testimony collections and talking to former KSEC activists, I began to realize that the answers to these questions lie in plain view, on the island of Yŏngdo, where the yard itself stood. Yŏngdo, connected by a bridge to Pusan in 1934, developed into an industrial area during the late colonial period as ironworks, shipyards, and small factories sprang up, and a tightly knit working-class community grew on the island. According to testimonies of former KSEC union activists, a loose and informal circle of young and old progressives existed on the island during the 1950s and 1960s, connected through school, kin, and neighborhood networks (Kwŏn interview 2006b, 2009; Pak Reference Wiwŏnhoe2004, 303–6; Pak and Pak Reference Pak and Mikyŏng2009, 53–61). Pak Chŏngbu was a central figure in the group, and another former Chŏnp'yŏng unionist, An Hyodŏk, was also a respected senior member of the group. An was the former president of the Chŏnp'yŏng-affiliated union at Chosŏn Sŏnbak (later Taesŏn Shipbuilding) in Yŏngdo. Pak Insang recalls how he and other KSEC unionists enjoyed visiting An, whom they jokingly called “head leftist” (rep'ŭt'ŭ tumok), and how An patiently listened to their stories of union struggle. Leaving An's place, they used to feel that they “had learned something important” (han su paewŏtta) (Pak and Pak Reference Pak and Mikyŏng2009, 54–55).

Pak Chŏngbu was a Yŏngdo Elementary school friend of Ye Ch'unho (b. 1927), the most successful and influential politician Yŏngdo has ever produced (see below). An Hyodŏk once worked for Ye's election campaign. Ye was committed to the social development of his hometown, and was respected for his integrity, intellect, and a “humble attitude,” represented by the unpretentious and practical “black rubber shoes” he wore all the time (Pu Reference Pu1996, 152). Yŏngdo Library, which was the first privately founded library in the country; Yŏngdo Children's Center; Yŏngdo Kindergarten; Yŏngdo Community Center; and a junior high-level school for students who could not afford regular education (kodŭng kongmin hakkyo) were built through funding Ye secured, and several local schools were founded in part through his initiatives and effort. Yŏngdo Library became the gathering place (sarangbang) of local progressives, and Pak Chŏngbu often brought junior KSEC workers there to meet Pu Sŏngsu and An Hyodŏk (Pak and Pak Reference Pak and Mikyŏng2009, 55, 80–83). Pu Sŏngsu, a teacher at Yŏngdo Elementary, who was fired after the 1961 coup because of his participation in the teachers' union movement, also was a senior member of the group. After his dismissal Pu worked as the head of Yŏngdo Library. Pu, a Cheju native and a son of a diving woman, secured Ye's help in support of a local diving women's strike in the 1960s, whose success galvanized diving women of the whole region and led to major improvements in the women's lives by abolishing exploitative contracts imposed by fishery establishments (Pu Reference Pu1996, 161–65).Footnote ⁶

Among the more junior progressives, Kwŏn Odŏk (b. 1940) and Kim Tongsik (b. 1942), both KSEC unionists, were graduates of Haedong High School, and Kim was a cousin of Pak Insang (b. 1939), a key KSEC union official. Kim Yŏngdae (b. 1935), another KSEC union member and a leftist activist (see below), was Kwŏn's neighbor and a colleague of Pak Insang at the yard. Pak Insang was enticed to work at the union office by Pak Chŏngbu. According to Pak Insang, at the center of the intellectual world of Yŏngdo progressives were Pak Chŏngbu, An Hyodŏk, and Pu Sŏngsu, all of whom maintained a close relationship with Ye Ch'unho, although they were critical of Ye's decision to join the Republican Party (Pak and Pak Reference Pak and Mikyŏng2009, 56–57). Ch'oe Sŏkhwan, whose father worked at the foundry at the KSEC yard; Cho P'yŏngnae, a medical doctor; and Kim Igon were also members of this group (Kwŏn interview 2006b; Pak Reference Wiwŏnhoe2004, 303–6). As students, most of the junior members of the group had been greatly influenced by the April Revolution of 1960.

In addition to neighborhood and workplace relationships, it appears that school connections played a crucial role in connecting people and forging long-lasting bonds. In that regard, Haedong High in Yŏngdo stands out. On March 13, 1960, Haedong students organized the first student demonstration in Pusan in the April Revolution, which participants from the Pusan-Kyŏngsang region prefer to call the “March-April Struggle” to better capture the diverse nature and composition of the two-months-long democracy struggle. Kwŏn Odŏk and his fellow Haedong upperclassman Son Pyŏngsŏn recall that several teachers at Haedong had great influence on them (Kwŏn interview 2006a, 2009; Son interview 2003). Kwŏn was two years junior to Son, who, as the president of the student body at Haedong, delivered moving speeches to students in the process of a collective action by students against the school board, which allegedly hired unqualified teachers through personal ties. Greatly impressed by Son's leadership, Kwŏn later sought Son as his lifetime mentor. Haedong teachers were also active participants in the movement to organize teachers' unions, one of the most important organizing drives of the period. Friendships and teacher-student relationships formed at school, both high school and college, were essential in the mobilizations for the April Revolution. Pusan's three universities produced many important actors and organizations during that period. Ye Ch'unho attracted graduates of Tong-A University, his alma mater, and at Pusan University Kim Yŏngdae (Political Science), Ch'oe Sŏkhwan (Law), and Son Pyŏngsŏn (Political Science) were leading student activists.Footnote ⁷ Pak Insang lived with his maternal cousin, Kim Chaeyong, who was a student in Pusan University's Political Science Department, and by discussing current affairs with him Pak began to attain political consciousness (Pak and Pak Reference Pak and Mikyŏng2009, 104). The Political Science Department of Pusan University, which the junta closed down after the coup, was a major center of progressive intellectual activities, and one of its professors, Yi Chongnyul, was an influential ideologue in the progressive movement of the era.

The Yŏngdo group centered on Ye Ch'unho. Ye is well known for his dramatic life trajectory. Starting as an obscure young activist in small-town Yŏngdo, Ye was recruited into the National Reconstruction Movement (Chaegŏn kungmin undong), a large-scale mobilization campaign the junta pursued with zeal immediately after the 1961 coup to tap into popular energy and mobilize grassroots participation in and support for the junta's “revolution,” which sought to reconstruct and modernize the nation both spiritually and materially (Heo Reference Heo2003; Hong Reference Hong and Yŏn'guwŏn1999, 199–200).Footnote ⁸ Although Ye was arrested and detained for a few days as a person of “progressive” orientation in the roundup of thousands following the coup, his reputation as a capable and committed local activist who successfully completed a large-scale, three-year construction project to build low-income housing in Yŏngdo made him a scouting target for the South Kyŏngsang headquarters of the movement (Ye interview 2002). At first Ye did not view the coup in a favorable light and thus was reluctant to work with the junta, but eventually he decided to join the reconstruction movement because he agreed with its goals. After working in the movement for six months, Ye was asked to participate in the secret work of organizing the Republican Party. Again Ye was very reluctant to join the military regime, but gradually was persuaded by the promise of the regime's nation-building plans. The appeal of the junta's plan for politics was threefold for him: the National Reconstruction Movement; the goal of eliminating poverty, which was the number-one agenda of the era; and the promise of a new start in politics with new talents untainted by old, undemocratic practices (Ye interview 2002).

Ye Ch'unho was not alone in this regard because many intellectuals of the time were fascinated with what modern military leadership like Park's junta stood for. Many famous intellectuals, including Chang Chunha of the most influential journal of the era, Sasanggye, initially endorsed, or as least acquiesced to, the coup, hoping that the junta would provide leadership, which was understood as a crucial ingredient for modernization in “underdeveloped” countries at the time (Chung Reference Chung2004, 170–73).Footnote ⁹ Labor activist Yi Ilchae recalls that even leftist activists around him harbored hopes for the junta, noting Park Chung Hee's connection to the communist movement in the 1940s (I. Yi interview 2002).

Ye Ch'unho's rise in the ranks of the new Republican Party was meteoric, and he reached the position of the general secretary in a short time. Some progressives in his hometown were critical of Ye's political choice, but most maintained a good relationship with him throughout the 1960s. Ye Ch'unho had many activist friends at the KSEC and in the community, as noted earlier, and intelligence personnel and company managers were well aware of Ye's behind-the-scenes support of the union (Kwŏn interview 2006a). This was the background for the mysterious remark by the manager in 1965 that connected Pak Chŏngbu with the Republican Party. Ye did not disappoint many of his progressive-minded friends when in 1969 he was kicked out of the Republican Party after opposing President Park's bid for a third term through a constitutional reform.

Just as local president Hŏ Chaeŏp's anticommunist credentials functioned as a buffer for the union against potential red baiting, Ye's political influence seems to have played a similar role in protecting the union. But the progressive circle in Yŏngdo was not the only outside source of advice and support for KSEC unionists. For Kwŏn Odŏk, who was very critical of Ye's decision to join the Republican Party (in his view, the coup destroyed the precious momentum for a genuine unification movement), the fount of wisdom was his fellow high school upperclassman, Son Pyŏngsŏn. Son's father was a member of the South Korean Workers' Party (Nam Chosŏn Nodongdang; hereafter, SKWP), the communist party of the southern half of the Korean peninsula, which faced harsh suppression from the U.S. occupation government. After going through incarceration twice because of his communist activities in the late 1940s, Son's father moved the family to Pusan, where Son grew up. According to Son's recollection, the father was a committed revolutionary, from whom Son inherited an avid interest in progressive ideas (Son interview 2003). During a short period of time around the April Revolution, Son Pyŏngsŏn was active in the student movement in Pusan, but after the military coup he kept a low profile.Footnote ¹⁰ While working as a KSEC union official, Kwŏn sought advice from Son from time to time. The relationship with Kwŏn and the KSEC union seems to have been important to Son Pyŏngsŏn also, considering the fact that in his 2003 interview, commissioned by the Korea Democracy Foundation, Son took pains to include the story of his relationship with Kwŏn of the KSEC union as part of his testimony.

Kwŏn Odŏk recalls that his decision to enter the KSEC yard in 1966 was made with a hope of playing a role in the union movement (Kwŏn interview 2006a, 2006b; Pak and Pak Reference Pak and Mikyŏng2009, 60). In that regard Kwŏn, who dropped out of college after one semester, was a precursor to the “students-turned-labor-organizers” (hakch'ul) of the 1980s, although his decision was an individual one and, unlike the 1980s student labor organizers, he lacked a clear organizational membership in a larger political movement beyond the informal circle of Yŏngdo progressives. Another major difference between the hakch'ul of the 1980s and KSEC union activists, including Kwŏn, was that the latter did not attempt to steer the union agenda in the direction of conscious political struggle. Kwŏn Odŏk and Pak Insang both recall that the KSEC union leaders prioritized the goal of strengthening the local union organization (hyŏnjang chojik) as the first step for strengthening the FKTU union movement. Concentrating on hyŏnjang, however, does not mean that the KSEC union was confined to the pursuit of “business unionism,” in which the union bargains for better wages and benefits while accepting management prerogatives in decisions about the labor process and business priorities. The range of demands the KSEC union made during the 1960s extended to claims for workers' right to participation in the process of making major business decisions for the yard, including restructuring and hiring decisions.

In this way, the KSEC union movement of the 1960s developed in a field richly enmeshed with larger political forces in the region and connected to various progressive pulses in the society to a much greater degree than most labor scholars have acknowledged. In Pak Insang's words, “the KSEC local was densely woven into the weft and warp of the world of Pusan's intellectuals, progressives, and the student movement” (Pak and Pak Reference Pak and Mikyŏng2009, 61). Although under the anticommunist surveillance regime these progressive circles and networks were limited in scope and influence, even industrial work sites were not immune to the power of these progressive energies and dreams, as the KSEC case so clearly shows.

The Kyŏngsang Region and Beyond

The networks of labor and progressive activists in Yŏngdo and Pusan were in turn connected to larger networks of the southeastern Kyŏngsang region. In the early part of the Korean War most of South Korea fell under the control of the North Korean army, except for the so-called “Pusan perimeter” from Pusan up to the Taegu area. The occupation by the North Korean communists had the effect of exposing communists and various other leftist elements, as the incoming North Korean army established governing structures and recruited personnel for land and other reform measures. Unlike the rest of the country, in Pusan and the Kyŏngsang region, underground leftist networks were not completely exposed and exterminated during the Korean War. A leftist Taegu native, Yi Ilchae, recalls that Taegu and Pusan “had the largest number of surviving former SKWP activists” (Keongil Kim Reference Kim, Chonggu, Chunyŏp, Won, Wŏnch'ŏl, Jun, Keongil, Hyŏnsŏn, Hŭiyŏng and Sunyŏng2009, 429). Therefore it is not surprising that the progressive movement in the 1950s was particularly strong in the Kyŏngsang region. By the late 1950s Pusan was harboring a broad spectrum of progressive networks (Sŏnmi Kim Reference Kim and Kinyŏm Saŏphoe2006, 351). The strongest regional base of Cho Pong'am's Progressive Party in the late 1950s was the Kyŏngsang region, Taegu in particular, and many of the progressives who were charged as members of underground leftist organizations from the 1960s on, such as the alleged “People's Revolutionary Party” (Inmin Hyŏngmyŏngdang), hailed from the region. The events before and during the April 1960 Revolution clearly show that Pusan and Taegu led the student movement and other progressive social and political movements. For example, the first student demonstrations leading up to the April Revolution occurred in Taegu and Pusan, the teachers' union movement started in Taegu, and the Youth Alliance for Democracy and the Nation (Minju Minjok Ch'ŏngnyŏn Tongmaeng; Minminch'ŏng), a key activist organization of the April Revolution, was first organized in Pusan and then expanded to Seoul (Pak and Kim Reference Pak and Tongch'un1991, 112).

Taegu, a “citadel of conservatism” today, was thus a city brimming with progressive energies in the 1950s and 1960s (Pak and Kim, 112–13). (It was the rule of Park Chung Hee, born near Taegu, that utterly transformed the politics of the city.) Taegu and the Pusan area also represented the center of the manufacturing industry in the 1950s, and thus the trade union movement was most active in this area (Keongil Kim Reference Kim, Chonggu, Chunyŏp, Won, Wŏnch'ŏl, Jun, Keongil, Hyŏnsŏn, Hŭiyŏng and Sunyŏng2009, 429). Labor activists in Taegu and Pusan, led by Kim Mallyong's Taegu Regional Union Federation, spearheaded the movement to create the National Council of Trade Unions (the Chŏn'guk Nodong Chohap Hyŏbŭihoe; Nohyŏp), a counter-organization to the FKTU, in the late 1950s. According to available sources, at least two leftist groups with roots in the Taegu labor scene are known to have developed plans to establish control over FKTU unions in the 1960s.Footnote ¹¹ Kim Chongt'ae's group, which was prosecuted in 1968 in the “Unification Revolution Party” (T'ongil Hyŏngmyŏngdang) Incident, was one of them, and the Yi Ilchae-Kwŏn Chaehyŏk group, indicted as the “South Korean Liberation Strategy Party” (Nam Chosŏn Haebang Chŏllyaktang), was another. Yi Ilchae was a veteran of the Chŏnp'yŏng movement and had experience in communist guerrilla struggle. After the April Revolution, Yi played a major role in reviving the Taegu trade union movement as an official of the Nohyŏp (Keongil Kim Reference Kim, Chonggu, Chunyŏp, Won, Wŏnch'ŏl, Jun, Keongil, Hyŏnsŏn, Hŭiyŏng and Sunyŏng2009, 440–42; I. Yi Reference Yi1990; I. Yi interview 2002). Kwŏn Chaehyŏk (1925–69) was a graduate of Seoul National University and studied economics at Georgetown University (S. Nam Reference Nam2009, 236; I. Yi interview 2002).

During 1967 and 1968, the Yi-Kwŏn group decided on an ambitious plan to send in organizers to major sites of the twelve industrial union federations in the FKTU system and bore from within (S. Nam Reference Nam2009, 236, 624; I. Yi interview 2002) in order to expand the labor base for a future vanguard party. One of the chosen sites turned out to be none other than the KSEC shipyard, and the designated organizer for the KSEC was Kim Yŏngdae, who is already familiar to us as one of the Yŏngdo progressives. A Yŏngdo native and Haedong High graduate, Kim studied under Yi Chongryul in Pusan University's Political Science Department and served as the head of the Yŏngdo branch of the Minminch'ŏng. He was imprisoned by the junta, but soon released and in 1965 entered the KSEC yard. His role at the KSEC union, however, seems to have been minor, and his involvement in union affairs does not appear in KSEC union documents other than his membership in the steering committee in 1967. It might be that Kim Yŏngdae chose to remain in the shadows because the surveillance of KSEC union activities by authorities was, by 1967, quite severe. But the more likely reason for Kim's inactivity was that the already vibrant union movement at the yard, well connected to local progressives, did not provide much room for outside intervention coming from Taegu.

While the progressives in Yŏngdo and Taegu in the 1950s and 1960s were busily discussing the future of the FKTU union movement, to the north, in Seoul and the surrounding Kyŏnggi region, some Christian activists were also reaching out to industrial workers (J. Kim Reference Kim and Sahoehakhoe2003, 102–4, 110). Recent studies on Protestant Urban Industrial Mission (UIM) activities and those of its Catholic counterpart, the Young Christian Workers (Jeunesse Ouvrière Chrétienne), in South Korea reveal that church activists worked with FKTU unions and management based on the assumption that labor-management cooperation would be the best way to organize industrial life (J. Kim Reference Kim and Sahoehakhoe2003, 105, 112–13). The Christian Academy, well known for its education programs for labor and farmer activists, trained many FKTU unionists in this period (W. Yi interview 2004), and KSEC unionists also took advantage of the Academy's education programs in Seoul. During the 1960s, what Christian UIM activists sought to accomplish by engaging FKTU unionists in Incheon and Seoul and what KSEC unionists and Yŏngdo progressives hoped to achieve in Pusan were not very different goals, and neither worked in an antagonistic relationship with the FKTU or government agencies. Both aimed at developing a healthy, democratic, and activist union movement within the framework of the FKTU, and activists in both organizations believed that it was possible to engage the government authorities on their behalf.

Forgotten Alliances

It was not until the fall of 1969 that the Park regime decided to intervene in the labor dispute at the KSEC yard and expel the militant union leadership. It is also noteworthy that it was only in the early 1970s (around 1970–71, in Jun Kim's view) that Christian activists, increasingly disillusioned by the FKTU, began to adopt an antagonistic stance against the FKTU union movement (J. Kim Reference Kim and Sahoehakhoe2003, 114–16; W. Yi Reference Yi2005, 249–50). The cordial relationship between the KSEC union and government authorities in the 1960s and the unionists' expectation to engage the state on their side developed in a very different political context from that of the 1970s and 1980s, the period in which the new minju labor movement would lock horns with the ŏyong movement of the FKTU backed by violent state power. The changed political terrain after the Yusin authoritarian turn engendered the minju labor movement and established it as a core part of the democracy movement. In the minju labor movement discourse, which exalts the pivotal role played by the worker-student alliance in the epic struggle against the evil state/FKTU power, there remained little room for memories of the KSEC union struggle and the local alliances workers forged with community progressives to be nurtured.

It might not be easy to imagine from today's vantage point (having passed through the period of Park's Yusin rule and the subsequent democracy movement), but during the first decade of military rule, as we have seen in Ye Ch'unho's case and the attitudes of KSEC unionists, the military regime's promises of overcoming poverty, eliminating corruption, and creating a new “social welfare” state for all seem to have struck a strong chord with many reform-minded South Koreans. In devising and executing its developmental strategies in this period, the state had a critical need to tap into popular sentiments and energies of the period. In this fluid and dynamic ideological terrain where exciting and radical negotiations between state actors and social forces were occurring at various sectors of the society, KSEC workers had reasons to be optimistic and forward-looking in their movement and progressive KSEC unionists like Pak Chŏngbu, Kwŏn Odŏk, and Pak Insang maintained a good relationship with Republican Party General Secretary Ye Ch'unho while management feared Ye's support of the union.

The Park regime's labor policy in the 1960s was premised on the belief that labor-management cooperation for rapid economic growth could be achieved through the sound development of the FKTU trade union movement (Ogle Reference Ogle1973, 402–3). That meant that, in principle, during the 1960s, workers' legal and constitutional right to organize, to bargain collectively, and to engage in collective action was to be guaranteed and respected, and in certain sectors, in male-dominated, non-export sectors and at state-managed corporations in particular, those principles were upheld in practice. The KSEC union, with the backing of local progressives and Ye Ch'unho of the Republican Party, was, by the late 1960s, pushing the boundaries of the industrial relations system, set by the military junta at the beginning of the decade, to a point where it became unfeasible to hold the system together any longer. The KSEC workers' demands were in essence a demand that the Park Chung Hee regime substantiate its promise of a nationalistic, democratic, working-people-oriented form of development. They learned the hard way where the regime's priorities really lay, when the government finally stepped in to crush the union in the fall of 1969.

Resulting in defeat and labeled as an ŏyong FKTU operation by the minju narrative, the KSEC workers' democratic struggle of the 1960s has long been forgotten in the lore of the South Korean labor movement, except as traces, as precious personal memories of some participants. Yet their story asks us rethink the question of what modernity, nation, and democracy might have meant to Koreans in the first decade of the Park era. Local-level investigation of activism and networking away from the national center adds to our continuing inquiry into the fascinating politics of domination and consent during the Park Chung Hee era.