Slide 1 Visiting Scholars’ Seminar • Hello, I’m Minhyoung Kang, and I’m
at Seoul National
University Asia Center
a PhD candidate in the Sociology
department at Johns Hopkins
Defiant Outsiders,
Compliant Insiders University.
Dynamic Interaction between Regular and Non-Regular
Workers' Movements at the Hyundai shipyards, Ulsan • In today’s presentation, I’d like to
tell you what I have done so far for
December 11, 2017
Minhyoung Kang my dissertation fieldwork in Ulsan.
• The title of today’s talk is defiant
outsiders, compliant insiders.
• By outsiders, I mean nonstandard,
temporary, informal, and precarious
workers.
• By insiders, I mean formal and
regular workers in standard
employment relationship.
• I focus on the relational dynamics
between regular and non-regular
workers’ movements at the
Hyundai shipyard.
Slide 2 • I argue that a system of
Tables of Content
employment status inequality was
• Introducing Home Institution and Fieldwork in South Korea
• Rise of Korean Shipbuilders and Shipyard Workers’ Protest installed and consolidated in the
• Categorical Inequality at the Korean Shipyards
• Accommodation and Resistance to Dualism in the Workplace
1990s right after the labor upsurge
of the late 1980s in South Korea’s
shipyards.
• I also suggest that non-regular
precarious workers have fought
against dualism and inequality in
the workplace since the late 1990s,
while regular worker union tend to
either exclude non-regular workers
from union membership or control
their newly established union.
• Before outlining my fieldwork, let
me briefly introduce my home
institution, Johns Hopkins
University.
Slide 3
Johns Hopkins University:
• Johns Hopkins was founded in 1876
America’s First Research
University founded in 1876
and known as the America’s first
• Undergraduate students are encouraged
to conduct independent research projects
research university.
• Undergraduate students are
• Sociology department was founded by
James Coleman in 1959
• Two major programs in sociology
1. Program in Social Inequality (PSI)
2. Program in Global Social Change
(PGSC)
encouraged to join the ongoing
• Arrighi Center for Global Studies
• Research Working Groups research projects led by faculty
• Double Major in Sociology and
International Studies
members and conduct independent
research projects.
• For example, in the sociology
department, those who are
interested in globalization, political
economy of development, and
social protests work as a research
assistant in the global social protest
project and other working groups.
Slide 4 • In fact, my dissertation fieldwork is
Fieldwork on Workers’
Movements in South Korea also related to the ongoing Global
• Six-month-long fieldwork in Ulsan and Incheon Social Protest.
Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI)
Hyundai Mipo Dockyard (HMD)
Hyundai Motor Company (HMC)
• During the fieldwork, I focus on the
General Motors Korea
• Direct and participant observation automobile and shipbuilding
• Semi-structured, in-depth interviews with workers
Workers: union representatives (대의원), shop-
floor activists (현장위원), rank-and-file workers,
industry in Korea.
• This is because these are the main
and dismissed workers (해고자)
Student-turned-workers (학출노동자) and labor
movement activists
epicenters of labor unrest in the
late 1980s according to the World
Labor Group database, which was
the ancestor of new global protest
dataset.
• I tried to explore divergent
trajectories of labor movements in
these two manufacturing sectors in
post-1987 South Korea through the
triangulation of multiple methods
and sources.
Slide 5 • So, let’s move into the capital
accumulation and labor resistance
in Korea’s shipbuilding industry.
Rise of Korean Shipbuilders and
Shipyard Workers’ Protest
Slide 6 Rise of East Asia in World Shipbuilding • In 1974, when HHI was established,
Industry world shipbuilding production was
World Vessel Completions
100%
3.4%
geographically concentrated in
80%
60%
37.5% Japan and Western European
40% 91.2%
countries.
51.8%
20%
0%
1974 2009
East Asia Western Europe Eastern Europe Americas Others
Slide 7 • However, after 35 years, South
Korea’s Ascent in World Shipbuilding Industry
World Vessel Completions
Korea and China became the major
Eastern
1974
Western
2009 exporters in the global shipbuilding
Europe,
3.7%
Europe,
3.4%
Japan,
industry.
24.6%
China,
Western
Japan, 28.5%
Europe,
50.4%
37.5%
South
South Korea,
Korea, 37.4%
0.9%
Slide 8 Korea’s Ascent in World Shipbuilding Industry • The South Korea’s rise in world
(cont’d) shipbuilding industry illustrates the
Rank Country Company Vessel Completions (2008) Orderbook (July 2009)
1 S. Korea Hyundai Heavy Industries
# Vessels
97
DWT
8,947
CGT
3,861
# Vessels
253
DWT
33,509
CGT
9,754
success of Korean chaebols in the
2
3
S. Korea
S. Korea
Daewoo Shipbuilding
Samsung Heavy Industries
42
53
5,509
5,016
2,396
2,531
186
188
27,900
23,411
8,861
8,792
global market.
4 S. Korea Hyundai Mipo Dockyard 70 2,898 1,543 227 8,726 4,811
5 S. Korea STX Shipbuilding 49 2,643 1,149 178 19,593 4,811
6 S. Korea Hyundai Samho 28 3,535 1,086 117 14,303 4,363
7 China Dalian Shipbuilding 32 2,624 820 111 18,458 3,419
8 China Jiangnan Changxing 4 628 112 119 3,684 3,253
9 China Jiangsu Rongsheng 5 376 97 85 16,884 2,826
10 S. Korea Sungdong Shipbuilding 17 1,108 328 93 13,144 2,629
Slide 9
Orderbook at Hyundai Heavy Industries,
1978-2016
Hyundai 400 16,000
Heavy
350 14,000
300 12,000
Industries 250 10,000
(HHI) as 200
150
8,000
6,000
World’s 100 4,000
Largest 50 2,000
Shipbuilder
0 0
1978
1981
1984
1987
1990
1993
1996
1999
2002
2005
2008
2011
2014
Orderbook (CT or CGT, Thousand) # Vessels
Slide 10
How Korean Shipbuilders Succeed
• Government’s Industrial Policy: Steel-Shipbuilding Nexus
• Chaebol-owned Manufacturers and their Competition
• Technological Adoption and Innovation
• Competitive Edge of Cheap Labor and Low Cost
Slide 11 Comparing Cost Structure in Production
of Low Value-Added Vessels in 1983
Medium-Sized Bulk Carriers (Ship Price = 100)
2.8
South Korea 70 12
0.9
Japan 63 30
0
Western Europe 70 36
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Material Cost Commission
Labor Cost General and Administrative Expenses
Design Cost Corporate Overhead
Profits
Slide 12 Experience of Shipyard Workers at HHI
before 1987
• “Factory Boy (Kongdoli) at Hyundai Chojina Factory” (현대
조지나 공장 공돌이)
Menial and contemptible status of factory workers
Highly repressive and violent labor control in the workplace
Manual labor at shipyard as low-wage, dead-end work
• Even full-time regular workers wanted to leave the shipyard
Inequality between regular and non-regular workers did not exist:
both were “equally” ill-paid workers
High-skilled non-regular workers received higher wages than young
regular workers
Slide 13
The Great Workers’
Struggle of 1987
• Chaebol-owned Shipyards
became one of epicenters of
labor unrest in South Korea:
Hyundai, Daewoo, and Hanjin
• Workers at HHI were at the
forefront of violent struggles
organizing democratic labor
unions
Slide 14 How Big Business Respond to Strong
Labor at Shipyard
• Allow pay increases and company welfare benefits for
unionized regular workers
• Devise “new management strategies” (신경영전략) to elicit
cooperation from workers and de-radicalize militant labor
movements
• Increase number of non-regular workers (indirectly-hired,
subcontracted workers) to promote numerical flexibility
Slide 15 35
30
Rates of
Wage 25
Increase at 20
HHI, 1987-
%
15
2013 (Base
Pay, Regular 10
Workers) 5
Slide 16 Number of Regular and Non-regular Workers in South
Korea's Shipbuilding Industry, 1990-2016
200,000 90%
180,000 80%
160,000 70%
140,000 60%
120,000
50%
100,000
40%
80,000
60,000 30%
40,000 20%
20,000 10%
0 0%
Regular Workers Non-regular Workers % Non-regular Workers
Slide 17
80%
70%
% Non-regular
Workers at 60%
Hyundai Heavy 50%
Industries, 40%
1990-2016 30%
(shipbuilding 20%
department) 10%
0%
Slide 18
Categorical Inequality at the
Korean Shipyard
Slide 19
Categorical Durable Inequality
• Inequalities correspond to categorical
difference (based on gender, race,
citizenship, class, etc.)
• Installation of categorical boundaries
help to solve organizational problem if
the boundaries in question incorporate
forms of inequality well established in
the surrounding world
• However, relational mechanisms
generating inequality (such as
exploitation and opportunity hoarding)
pose their own organizational problems
Slide 20
Resistance to Categorical Inequality
• Non-regular workers at shipyards perform similar or even same
tasks compared to regular workers
Employers tend to hire non-regular workers to outsource dirty,
dangerous, and difficult tasks or jobs in which regular workers do not
want to take at shipyards
Employment status by itself functions as a boundary or fault line
between under-exploited and over-exploited workers: most of them
are male; there is no big difference in average age; they belong to
same ethnic group; they have similar levels of education and skills
• Non-regular workers view categorically unequal rewards as
unjust, mobilizing resistance to dualism in the workplace
Slide 21 Categorical Distinction between Regular and
Non-regular Workers at Korean Shipyard
• Indirectly-hired subcontracted workers did not want to
become regular workers (directly employed by the Chaebol
firms) given that high-skilled subcontracted workers received
higher wages than regular workers in the 1980s
• Faced with labor upsurge, Chaebol firms at shipyards have
increased number of non-regular subcontracted workers to
meet the fluctuation in demand in world market in the 1990s
Slide 22 Categorical Distinction between Regular and Non-
regular Workers at Korean Shipyard (cont’d)
• A system of employment status inequality has been installed at
HHI in the 1990s
There is no inequality in per-hour wage of base-pay between
newly-hired regular and non-regular workers if they work less
than seven years and if non-regular workers are classified as A-
level workers in the mid-1990s.
According to the case study of HHI in 1993, non-regular workers
generally received 70% of the regular workers’ average annual
wage, when considering both bonuses and performance-related
pay.
Slide 23 HHI Managers Illegally Directed In-house,
Subcontracted Workers
Slide 24 Employment Status Inequality at Korean
Shipyards
• Inequality based on employment status at work helps to solve
the contradiction between profitability and legitimacy crises:
How to sustain firm’s profits and export competitiveness faced
with labor militancy and increasing labor costs?
• Employers promote categorical inequality between regular and
non-regular workers to increase labor flexibility and decrease
labor cost without jeopardizing quality in the 2000s
Slide 25
Leader of Regular Workers’ Union
• “When I worked as the vice-president of HHI labor union (as
the representative of shipbuilding department) in 1996, I had a
chance to meet one of top manager in my department. He
showed me a draft of papers, documenting that HHI employers
will hire more non-regular workers. Frankly speaking, I had no
idea what this is about back then. Maybe he wanted to check
the extent to which the regular workers’ union were ready to
organize protests against outsourcing or subcontracting. It
took less than five years that the union recognized the
problem of increasing subcontracted workers at the shipyard.”
Slide 26 Indirectly-hired, Spray-
Painting Worker
• “When I firstly moved to Ulsan and
began to work as a shipyard worker at
HHI in 2000, I thought that employers
provided decent wages and working
conditions due to the power of
democratic labor union. However, that
was not the case for non-regular
workers. We, subcontracted workers,
have received minimum wages based on
time-based pay. Our medical expenses
were not covered by the occupational
health and safety insurance.”
Slide 27 Employment Status Inequality in Korean
Shipbuilding Industry
Wage Inequality between Regular and Non-regular Workers at Shipyards, 2004
Regular Workers Non-Regular Workers Wage Gap
Average Working Annual Working
Wage Hours Wage Hours
Base Pay 24,640 267 19,075 273 77.4%
Overtime 3,706 37 4,228 44 114.1%
Bonuses 616 139 22.6%
Total Wage 28,311 304 23,735 317 83.8%
Slide 28 Employment Status Inequality in Korean
Shipbuilding Industry (cont’d)
Average Monthly Wage of Regular and Non-regular Workers at HHI, 2014
Regular Monthly Years of Non-regular Monthly Years of
Workers Wage Work Workers Wage Work
Kisa, 7th class 3,674 1.4 Mulryangt`im 2,982 1.1
Kisa, 6th class 4,129 3.8 Bongong 2,326 4.7
Kisa, 5th class 4,838 11.2
Kisa, 4th class 5,968 22.6
Kiwon 6,868 29.1
Kijang 7,239 31.2
* 1,000 KRW/ Average Years of Work Experience
Bongong (본공): Legal permanent employee of in-house subcontracted firms at shipyards
Mulryangt`im (물량팀): member worker in a team functioning as a subcontractor of the in-house,
subcontracted firms
Slide 29
Accommodation and Resistance
to Dualism in the Workplace
Slide 30 Relational Dynamics of Resistance and
Accommodation to Durable Inequality
Hypothetical Interactions between Regular and Non-regular Workers in the Dualism
Regular Workers
Inclusion Exclusion
Non-Regular Voice A. Solidarity B. Conflicts
Workers Exit C. Insider-led Organizing D. Entrenched Dualism
Slide 31
From Solidarity to Entrenched Dualism
• A few subcontracted workers at HHI have formed a network
among activists inside the shipyard since the mid-1990s
• President of HHI’s regular worker union in 2002 helped non-
regular workers publish news articles in the union’s official
newspaper
• When one non-regular worker, Park Il-Soo, set himself on fire
to fight against the unfair dismissal in 2004, HHI regular
worker union’s leader and its representatives used violence
against non-regular workers by disrupting funeral parlor and
beating labor movement activists
Slide 32 Two Unions at Shipyards during the High
Time of Micro-Corporatism
• Regular worker union: “Partner” of Chaebols
Conservative union leaders and representatives explicitly pursued
cooperation with their employers
Even progressive or left-oriented union activists did not help non-
regular workers and their union
• Non-regular worker union: All became dismissed
A group of grinding, sanding, and polishing workers collectively joined
the labor union, but they all became dismissed if they remained
unionized (HHI made a list of workers involved in union activities)
Non-regular worker union had little influence on the shop-floor non-
regular workers
Slide 33 Compromise vs. Resistance
Regular Workers Non-Regular Workers
Slide 34
From Entrenched Dualism to Solidarity?
• Under new leadership, non-regular worker union gained
traction in the early 2010s
• When militant democratic faction took power at HHI regular
worker union in 2014, they ran campaigns to organize non-
regular workers with non-regular worker union’s activists
• However, threats of collective dismissal combined with
profitability crisis at HHI made regular workers more inclined
to exclude non-regular workers as a buffer to collective layoffs
Slide 35 Firm-level Profitability in the Chaebol-owned
Shipbuilders in South Korea, 1985-2015
30
25
20
Profti Rates (%)
15
10
5
0
-5
-10
-15
Hyundai Heavy Industries Samsung Heavy Industries
Slide 36 Manufacturing Workers at HHI, 1990-2016
60,000
regular workers non-regular workers
50,000
40,000
30,000
20,000
10,000
-
Slide 37
Rise of China in World Shipbuilding Industry
100%
World Orderbook, 1977-2016
90%
80%
70%
60%
50% % China
% Korea
40%
% Japan
30%
20%
10%
0%
Slide 38 Collective Protest
led by Non-Regular
Workers at Hyundai
Shipyards
• Hunger Strikes
(단식농성)
• Confrontation with
guards
• Sky protest/Aerial
sit-in (고공농성)
• Shaving protesters’
heads (삭발)
Slide 39
Thank you!
Minhyoung Kang
([email protected])
