A (not so) brief story about Hanjin Heavy Industries and construction(HHIC)

2011.6.29.

On the top of a huge shipyard crane in Busan, South Korea, a banner reads - no, it screams - "LAYOFF IS MURDER".

Labor hero Jin-Suk Kim and other resilient workers have occupied the crane #85 in the Hanjin Heavy Industries and construction (HHIC afterwards) Shipyard for 2 days. Ah, correction. Kim was up on the crane and didn't come down since Jan. 6., protesting against the company's Reduction In Force (RIF afterwards) plan. Violating official agreements with the union, Hanjin plans to lay off 400 workers which accounts for 1/3 of the entire remaining union workforce and announced that it would ask for "voluntary retirement requests" from workers. On top of protesting against the undeserved layoffs, workers are arguing that this is the first step leading to an eventual shutdown of Yeong-do and Da-dae shipyard, which are some of the largest employers of Busan city.

To provide some background on this matter, I'd like to go back in time a little to when it all started. Not all the way back to when Kim started working as the first female welder in Korea in 1982. Not to 1986, when she first got fired for being involved in worker's rights movements. I'll go back to 2003, when a situation similar to this happened and took 2 lives.

2003 Layoff, Kim, and Kwak

Joo-ik Kim was the delegate of Hanjin Heavy Industries Union in 2003, when severe RIF swept through HHIC. He was the leader of the LNG protest in 1994 and got arrested for that. After a long hard struggle for reinstatement, he came back and was elected as the union representative in Oct. 2000. But the company pushed the union out of the edge. After several "voluntary retirements", "advised retirements" and forced discharges, 600 workers lost their jobs. During this RIF, Hanjin took 26 workers to the disciplinary committee, filed a lawsuit for damages against 14 workers, amounting to 1.5 million dollars. Despite Korean laws requiring a company to be in a critical management crisis to initiate an RIF, the company's revenue maintained 1.3 billion dollars with 20 mil. in EBIT, even though the workers were still on strike.

Joo-ik Kim climbed up on the crane #85 in Jun. 11, after a session with company executives was stopped. He claimed, "#85 will be my epitaph. If it's my life you want, I'll sacrifice it." After 128 days, he hung himself in the control room of #85. 15 days after Joo-ik Kim passed away, another worker lost his life. Jae-kyu Kwak was one of the "survivors", who had not lost his job in the RIF. He cried on his knee, before Joo-ik Kim's "altar without body" (Kim's body was still on the crane). He expressed his apologies and regret for being the survivor while Kim died. Eventually, he threw himself over the edge of dock #4 of the HHIC shipyard.

Jin-suk Kim, who is on the #85 now, stopped turning on the heating in her room from that day on, as her own way of not forgetting what happened. While consolidating the workers of Ssangyong motors on a strike, she recalled on Twitter ( @JINSUK_85 ) :

After Joo-ik passed away, I first realised that the human body could produce such an amount of tears. Tears spilt over whenever I got up from a chair, when I walked and I had a meal. It flooded into my ears, nose, every parts of my body. Jae-kyu was a close friend. He was almost invisible, wherever he participated. On holidays, he brought socks, long johns, smiled, and handed them to me. That man died. This time, nobody cried. Nobody, out of 1,000 comrades, opened his or her mouth. It was almost scary. They were like the ancient 'courtiers buried alive alongside their monarch'. This time, no one was able to cry. There's no punishment like this; You cannot cry, when every body part is soaked with tears and screams already. With words stuck in my heart filled with thick fog, I wandered around, pleading the workers that they eat their meals, sleep at nights. That was the only thing I could do. Right beneath crane #85 , there is dock #4 where Jae-kyu threw himself. I have never given a glimpse at that dock. So please, my brothers and sisters of Ssangyong, eat when you have to. Sleep when the night comes. Please, listen to what I say now.

Only then, after the two deaths, the government and HHIC gave in. Their claim of "critical management condition" was a lie. A new Union cafeteria was built, and even the salary was raised a little. A joint funeral was held on Nov. 16. The body of Joo-ik Kim was finally brought down from the 100ft. high crane. Jae-kyu Kwak's body was pulled over from 30ft. deep dock.

Fast Forward to Now

From that day on, the tens of thousands of workforce that once filled the shipyard has shrunken to 2,500 union and non-union workers. Now, among the remaining 1,200 workforce, additional 400 will be fired in this RIF (announcements for 352 were filed). During those years of massive layoffs, HHIC built another shipyard in Subic, Philippines.
It was from the beginning a severe violation against the special collective bargain in 2007 on the Korean worker's right protection. It specified the following: 1) HHIC will try to secure 3 years' amount ship building projects within S. Korea. 2) The company will maintain the current level of workforce. It will not push an RIF involving shut-down or reduction of domestic shipyards based solely on management decisions. 3) As long as overseas shipyards are active, no managerial action such as RIF shall take place which violates the mutually bargained retirement age.

It was all scrapped. agreement 1) went missing, when HHIC announced that the reason for the RIF is because they don't have anything to build in the Busan shipyard. The company placed all newly commissioned ships (priced up to 70 million dollars) to the Subic shipyard. The Union claims that this was a strategic move of HHIC to fire the workers out of their factory. In fact, more than 3,000 were fired in 2010 alone, and 300 more were forced into leave of absence. The shipyard in Ulsan, Korea was shut down.

Of Workers and CEOs

The workers of HHIC went into a full strike in Dec. 2010. In Jan. 4, Jin-suk Kim turned on the heating of her room for the first time in 8 years. On Jan. 5, She went to a public bath, also first time in 8 years. She texted her roommate, "Don't be surprised. Read the notes over my desk." It said that she "thought that I have gone through various things", and "there were so many decisions in this not-so-common-life", but "knowing what the crane #85 means to me", "this one was the toughest decision I have ever made.". On Jan. 6., she climbed up the #85. This was her note to her co-workers.

Last year.
To sit was like sitting on needles.
To lie was like lying on a bed of thorns.
Sleepless nights, sleeps jerked out by nightmares.
How on earth, can I do nothing and just watch my colleagues get fired?

There's no reason for living, without Hanjin Union workers.
I'll do everything I can, to protect my colleagues.

Much remorse do I feel, when I leave my warm, cozy room......
What would have Joo-ik, Jae-kyu felt? So many feelings, so many regrets......

I'll do one thing that Joo-ik could not do.
One thing that he yearned to do, but could not do.
WALKING DOWN THE CRANE ON MY TWO FEET.
That I will do, for sure.

I spend a day where Joo-ik sat,
lie where Joo-ik laid himself, and asked for sleep.
See the aspects of life, where Joo-ik saw in his life.
And one thing he could not do,
One thing he longed for,
WALKING DOWN THE CRANE WITH MY TWO FEET,
That I will do for sure.

Then this crane #85 will no longer be remembered as tears.
No more as grave sorrow, No more as stabbing pain,
but as a symbol of victory, and resurrection.
I will come back down, alive.

My first and my last love.
Union Workers, my brothers and sisters,
I will be beside you,
Till the day victory comes.

And now, to what happened in the last few days.

Jun. 6. 27, after Kim's 174 days protesting, electrical power to the crane was cut off. Then a breaking news came. "Settlement reached between Union leader Kil-yong Chae and company." However, it was far from the truth. Hanjin union is a branch of the Korea Metal Worker's Union(KWMU), so the authority for making that decision was not Chae but the representative of KWMU. The only way for Chae to override that would be to get a letter of authorization directly from a pre-delegated committee consisting of Hanjin Branch members, which was not the case. At 3:30am, after an endless debate, the workers agreed that they retreat to the Union building and regroup. Chae sneaked out and e-mailed the letter of settlement to the company and the press, without the Union's approval or knowledge.

When this news hit the mainstream media treadmill, it was reframed as a "total settlement." Without investigating further, many conservative mainstream news outlets spread this misperception nationwide. They quickly framed the workers who continued to protest as a small non-negotiable faction. And when the scheduled law enforcement came that morning in to remove the company grounds from the protesters, it was done with brute force with many company-hired thugs actively involved. The resisting workers grouped under #85, but the company-hired thugs under police protection pulled them apart. The workers who tied themselves to the crane, were taken away, one by one. At the end of the day, only about 30 were left. The Police and company-thug team piled up container boxes to block outside cameras. Also they prepared a plan to drive Kim out of her sky-high protesting site: using another nearby crane to lift up a container box to deploy policemen or even simply crash it into crane #85 if necessary.

Many mainstream media were telling people that everything was done for. The settlement had been reached, with a small fraction of extremists resisting. However, unfettered real-time witnesses on the Twitterverse pleaded to stop this ongoing madness.

That night, HHIC proposed that it could restore electricity when some of the workers come down. Over 10 came down, to make power available. After 24 Hrs, the power is still not restored. The only way for the ones on the crane to communicate to the outside world is through their smartphones. But without power, they will run out of batteries soon. The only way to communicate with outside world is to be cut off. The food supply has been also cut off. Some food was brought in, but Kim could not eat that, for she can only eat rice porridges -- her stomach was compromised when she went into a hunger strike. She filed an emergency petition to the Korean Human Rights Committee, on behalf of the protesters on the crane.

Meanwhile, HHIC's CEO, Nam-ho Cho has been refusing to attend the Congressional hearing about the company's real management conditions and whether his RIF can be justified at all.

Footages Taken at Yeong-do shipyard

Footages by protesting worker.
http://vimeo.com/25656913

Footages by Jin-suk Kim, her life on a crane
http://vimeo.com/25402322

Further Reading

Jeong-hwan Lee, trans. Hey-kyung Lee, Why they climbed the towering crane?
http://www.leejeonghwan.com/media/archives/002019.html

This article explains how well HHIC was doing, how soaring real estate value influnces HHIC's decision. In short, HHIC will turn black, and it's due to Subic shipyard. Conglomerates which gained current position by government protection by money, by labor oppression -- in other words, Jaebeol -- now goes on exodus. It has its values to be explored, which would have to consist another article. Original article can be found here:
http://www.leejeonghwan.com/media/archives/002015.html

People to reach, so you can hear more.

to be updated.

Sources

(Note: All are written in Korean. I must admit, that some part of article above were just quoted without proper attribution. This amounts to plagiarism. All those quoted will be properly be attributed, soon.)

a Hope bus, citizens gathered and visit Yeong-do shipyard, and gathered under #85
http://www.sisainlive.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=10546

Details behind Yeong-do layoff
http://www.vop.co.kr/A00000278694.html
http://www.vop.co.kr/A00000276225.html

History of Hanjin protest, since 1982
http://www.pressian.com/article/article.asp?article_num=30110330104351

Words of Jin-suk Kim was quoted from
http://blog.naver.com/PostView.nhn?blogId=idohan&logNo=80133384973

http://www.nahnews.net/news/articleView.html?idxno=5358

How much did Hanjin owner Nam-ho Cho receive as revenue share?
http://www.ilyosisa.co.kr/print_paper.php?number=11133

How the media framed the workers as extremist faction
http://news.naver.com/main/read.nhn?mode=LSD&mid=sec&sid1=102&oid=001&aid=0005134737

note. 1. : @hooniyaa77 twitted, that a union worked came to him and held his/her hand. He cried on his knees saying, please tweet this, make this known to the outside world. He hasn't got a smartphone, couldn't let his feelings be heard. It was him and @hooniyaa77, who made me write this. It is a work of that nameless worker, not mine. I feel sorry that I couldn't do more. I'm sorry.

note. 2. : It went through some revisions. @capcold edited my coarse words so that the fact be more clearer, sentence be more readable. All the factual errors and misinterpretation, is my responsibility.