Heejeong, a record worker in 2019, was told that workers remained in a company building that was closed to fight. It was Sungjin CS (hereinafter referred to as Sungjin), a manufacturer of automobile leather seats. Workers of Shinyoung Precision (mobile phone parts manufacturer, Shinyoung) and Raytech Korea (stationery sticker manufacturer, Raytech) were also fighting on the street. All of them were middle-aged female production workers.
The society said’it can’t be helped’ when a small company was closed and workers lost their livelihood. There was no story about the workers who made the company run, and sympathy was poured into the company and its boss. “Is it going to happen that the boss is going to close his company’s door?”
The gaze of’Ajumma Desen’ was drawn to female workers. No one was worried about being fired. The words “rest, do volunteer work,” just came back. The voice was different from the voice of concern about the man who lost his job, saying, “What about that house?”
Hee-jeong, Limbo, Si-Yang, and Ha-eun (ideal name of activity) united to’record the fights of female workers’. They created’Torok, a record team for women fighting.’ Limbo has been engaged in youth labor rights advocacy and human rights education. Siyang is campaigning against the deployment of THAAD (high-altitude missile defense system) in Seongju, Gyeongbuk. Eun Ha works as an activity supporter for the disabled. They wanted to ask questions in Korean society. Is it really unavoidable to close the business?
Torok met Seongjin, Shinyoung, and Raytech workers for 4 to 5 months from the spring of 2019. Records containing the voices and concerns of workers last year <회사가 사라졌다>Came out as. Heejeong, Limbo, Siang, and Haeun met with zoom on the 9th.
■The company disappeared
“There is even a small shield that can be identified as unfair dismissal such as layoff requirements, but there is no defense against a failure. Closing or liquidation is ambiguous to cover the injustice with the law. That’s why I took the job of being cut off and being cut off as’unavoidable’ and’natural work’.” Heejeong said when asked about the reason for the closure.
Sungjin started in 1999 as an in-house subcontract to Kolon Seiren, a textile manufacturer that is affiliated with Kolon (now merged into Kolon Klotek). The bonus, which was 550% when Sungjin opened the door, was cut every year and disappeared. The only allowance was a technical allowance of 50,000 won. In order to save the 300,000 won paid to the cleaning service company, the boss had the staff clean the toilet. The cafeteria was also closed and employees were given 80,000 won per month for meals.
In January 2018, the president said he was changing the employment rules. They told me to eliminate the meals that were worth 3,000 won per meal and settle it at their own expense. He said that public holidays should be replaced with annual leave and that the production volume should be increased. Women workers formed trade unions. After two months, Kolon said that there was no supply. Women workers were notified of layoffs in March. The notice of dismissal was withdrawn due to the mediation of the Labor Commission, but the company closed in May.
Shinyoung was the primary partner of LG Electronics. In 2017, the company said its sales were cut in half. In August of that year, an announcement of hopeful retirement was posted on the grounds of’quick management normalization and efficient manpower operation’. When people didn’t go out on their own, 73 of the 160 employees were laid off. When workers returned to work after seven months after being unfairly dismissed by the Seoul Regional Labor Commission, the company notified the’liquidation’ in January 2019. About 40 workers built agricultural growth in the company building.
In 2013, Raytech asked the packaging department staff to change from regular to contract workers and rewrite their labor contracts. Employees protested and formed a union in June of that year. The company even installed CCTV in the changing room to monitor female workers, but was discovered. In 2018, the company outsourced the packaging department and assigned 20 employees from the department to the sales department. In 2019, employees in the packaging department were fired.
■“Your labor is 1,000 won”
The three companies did not recognize the labor value of middle-aged women who have worked for decades. Raytech president told the workers, “Your labor is worth 1,000 won.” Manager Shin Young said, “Don’t do that because you shouldn’t ask for it,” when female workers came to the office to demand wage preservation after the 52-hour week was implemented. I was about to tell the male employees in the same department, “I will switch to the annual salary system.” All were the same full-time job. President Seong-jin dismissed the female workers who cut the chair seats, saying, “Anyone can come to the cutting room.”
“We call it’factory work’ because we are crowded. These people are very proud of their work. It’s the pride of being an expert with accumulated know-how. Although society doesn’t admit it, they call themselves’career’. Now, I want the society to admit it.” Siya brought up the story of Kim Jeong-suk who worked at Shinyoung. Since the age of 15, Kim has been working in various factories, including pharmaceutical factories, mold companies, and cell phone factories. In recognition of his experience in inspecting assembled mobile phone parts, he joined Shinyoung as a full-time employee.
The cutting, inspection, and packaging tasks performed by female workers in the three companies are classified as’unskilled’ and’simple’ labor. The perception that’anyone can come and do it’ is prevalent. A woman worker who cuts leather sheets in Sungjin asked Hee-jeong, “Have you ever seen the stitching on the back of the leather sheet?” Heejeong wrote in his book:
“We easily attach the modifiers “unskilled” and “simple” to the labor of others without knowing what process the product goes through. It would be those backs that keep the sleek mid-size car’s solidity, but we don’t know how straight the stitching on the back of the leather seat is. In order to maintain that straightness, I always give strength to my hands, so I don’t know those who say that life is possible only when I soak my stiff hands in hot water in the morning and sooth them.” (p. 96)
Hee-jung said, “The lines separating central and secondary labor have continued to appear in Korean society,” and said, “From what is commonly called simple work, repetitive work, and women’s work, it has been subcontracted and outsourced.” He said, “The part in the book that I did not want to forget was’Where is the secondary labor in the world?'”
Limbo said that the way he treated women in the 1970s remained intact. He said, “When women workers in the 70s form a union,’I took the young and unlearned women to make money, and then they made a difference. It’s a great job.’ The’you can’t say’ method just worked.”
■Not just personal history
The stories of women workers in the three companies in the book were also the history of modern and contemporary industries. Women workers worked for a living from their teens until after marriage and childbirth. It was a family meal, but the society said it was’earn side dishes’. Torroc didn’t just convey the fact that women workers are fighting’now’. What kind of life they have been through, what kind of existence each company is to them, what kind of fighting means, etc.
“Since I was interviewing, I saw the process of transferring jobs countless times along the way. In particular, it revealed the history of job changes experienced by women who have been married, childbirth, and childrearing. It is also a personal history, but it also clearly shows how Korean industries such as the Guro Industrial Complex have changed. After getting married, Jung Hae-seon was Raytech’s first job. It was difficult for a married woman to find a white-collar job. Jeong chose the packaging job for production workers only because he could leave work at 6 pm because of the youngest attending a daycare center.
In the book, Sihai defined the fight of women workers as’the moment of boldness’. “When the President of Raytech tried to convert a regular regular job into a contract, the moment when Pilja Lee, the manager-level team leader, who should stand in the Navalsu position of the president, rejected the contract and formed a union with the team members to prevent disadvantages from returning to the team members. Yes. While President Seong-jin urged employees to sign an agreement to change the employment rules with the content of cutting off meals and eliminating annual leave, only one person persisted without signing until the end. The moment when co-workers who watched it, and who were confused by it, decided to become a labor union, is the moment when they become bold.” (p. 262)
He said, “It is meaningful that people who have always been injustice, but who have lived without knowing it, recognized the injustice at some point and decided to fight for themselves.”
Torok shared the transcripts each interviewed and tried to see the interviewee in three dimensions. Ha Eun said, “I did not try to tell the story by confining the female worker to one identity, such as’fighter’ and’mother’.” It was an advantage that the team members all worked in different fields. “Even the same sentence was interpreted differently,” said Haeun, and “I worked as if there were three different people in my head.”
The women workers told Torrok, “Write something that can tell others to fight like us.” Heejeong said, “In fact, the result of the struggle in all three places is not a’happy ending’. However, in the process of voicing, his vision has broadened from his own fight to’solidarity’.” When asked,’What has changed since the fight’, female workers answered, “The world looks different.” I learned that I can see other people’s work, and that other people can see my work.
Even after the book was published, there are still women fighting. Representatives are the cleaning workers at LG Twin Tower in Yeouido, Seoul, who urge employment succession. Torok said, “The record of fighting women continues.” “We talked about finding women who fight in various fields such as people’s resistance movements, as well as those who fight in the workplace,” said Siya. Hee-do said, “I’m going to include women struggling in their own field.”