Migrants’ Trade Union in South Korea Grows, Gains International Support
Migrant workers face tremendous pressure and exploitation in dynamic and wealthy South Korea, reports the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center’s Timothy Ryan.
In one of the richest and the most Internet-wired countries in the world, you might assume that workers’ and migrants’ rights are respected. You’d be wrong.
Between 200,000 and 700,000 migrants, a large number of them undocumented, work in South Korea. They represent several Asian countries, including Vietnam—home to the largest number of migrants to South Korea—as well as the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Nepal. They work in manufacturing, construction, fisheries and the service industry (e.g. hotel and domestic workers).
One important issue is that ethnic Korean-Chinese, who come to South Korea through a separate visa process, are given relatively preferential treatment because of their ethnic background. This lays the groundwork for inherent discrimination against workers from all the other countries, including in terms of wages. Many employers discriminate against migrants by refusing to pay them the minimum wage or forcing them to work up to 20 hours a day to get overtime pay.
Another issue is that South Korea is rather unique because companies do not use private recruiters to attract migrant workers. Instead, the government brings in migrant workers through memoranda of understanding with sending countries.
But South Korean unions, in concert and support with their brothers and sisters in the Nepali labor movement, are fighting back and making progress. Read the rest of this entry »
AFL-CIO ‘Strongly Opposes’ Korea-U.S. Trade Agreement
 |
||||
|
||||
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka repeated our strong opposition to the South Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) in its current form. In a statement late yesterday, Trumka said the agreement, negotiated by the Bush administration, “would exacerbate our already lopsided trade relationship with South Korea, putting at risk thousands of good U.S. jobs in the auto, steel and other industrial sectors.”
The agreement phases out tariffs on goods and services traded between the two countries. But, as now proposed, the agreement does not go far enough in eliminating the non-tariff barriers that currently prevent American products—especially autos—from entering the South Korean market fairly, he added. Trumka said trade negotiators should
go back to the table to address the imbalanced market-access provisions in the agreement, and to revisit the flawed investment, procurement and services provisions as well.
Old Economy Doesn’t Work—Time for a New Model
An economy in which the rest of the world produces and America consumes no longer works. The United States must begin to make more of the things we consume. That will require a new vision for our economy and concrete actions to change the core policies that created the current global economic crisis.
Speaking during a workshop at the America’s Future Now conference this morning, several members of a panel on global economic strategy said the key to long-term economic recovery is the creation of a new economic model that emphasizes production and savings, not consumption.
That new vision must include actions to fight the major causes of the collapse of U.S. manufacturing—currency manipulation, trade policies that foster a race to the cheapest sources of labor, tax policies that encourage companies to move offshore and the imbalance of power between workers and employers.
AFL-CIO Opposes Panama Deal, Calls for Trade Policy Review
BREAKING: President Obama has delayed moving the Panama trade deal because of union objections. Read more here.
Congress should not consider the U.S.-Panama trade agreement until Panama implements labor law and tax reforms and the Obama administration lays out a comprehensive, principled trade strategy for the United States.
Testifying before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee today, AFL-CIO Policy Director Thea Lee said the union movement will oppose the Panama deal unless these issues are resolved.
The AFL-CIO has called on Panama to bring its labor laws into compliance with the International Labor Organization’s (ILO’s) minimum standards. For example, Panama’s laws effectively prohibit the forming of a union in most workplaces and seriously limit the right to strike. A growing problem in Panama are the laws that allow employers to circumvent unions by repeatedly hiring the same workers on a temporary basis, rather than hiring them as full-time workers, Lee said.
