From Human to Workers' Rights: The Emergence of a Migrant Workers' Union Movement in Korea

Abstract

Migrant workers in Korea occupy a low social position because of their objective economic position within the division of labour, hegemonic norms of racial homogeneity, and government policy that seeks to extract the labour power from migrant workers without recognising their substantive human and workers' rights. Despite the existence of an official system for the rotational employment of so-called “industrial trainees”, the dominant system in Korea has been a tacitly accepted market for illegal labour. Despite the emergence of a dynamic civil society movement to support migrant workers, their challenge to the prevailing cultural norms in society and their manifestation in government policy has been somewhat limited. However, a migrant-worker-centred trade union movement has also emerged which, although still in its early stages, has more directly begun to challenge these norms and to achieve a common identity with the Korean working class.