Labor Control of the State and Women's Resistance in the Export Sector of South Korea

Abstract

Using 36 cases of labor disputes, this study analyzes the role of the state in shaping women's labor activism and the outcomes of such actions. Specifically, it examines how the strong state in South Korea had weakened women's organized power despite women's active labor militancy in the 1970s. The analysis focuses on the mechanisms of state controls of labor, the factors promoting women's participation in labor actions, and the outcomes of state repression of union activities. Socio-structural conditions in the 1970s promoted women's leading role in labor unions and labor struggles. Korean women's active participation in labor struggles refutes the gender-culture approach that emphasizes Asian women workers' docility and their labor inactivism. South Korean women's labor militancy, however, was substantially demobilized by the retaliatory measures of the state in the 1980s. This suggests that the state reinforced the oppression of South Korean women in the workplace.