[ LABOR UNREST ]
THE BARRICADE BRIGADE
Countries and cities with a history of militant unionism are having a tough time as employment takes a knock

The worst casualty of the ongoing global economic meltdown has unarguably been employment. Compared to indicators like inflation, productivity, consumer confidence and credit availability, employment will remain the problem child of the present crisis. Even if there is are bound by early 2010, the ability of affected economies to quickly supply jobs to their populations is set to remain below par.

The most recent manifestation of acute anger at the workplace in response to layoffs is the dramatic standoff between workers and security forces at the Ssangyong Motor Company in South Korea. Hundreds of severed workers occupied the factory premises for more than two months were eventually evacuated through armed raids by
Police last week after pitched battles involving slingshots, firebombs and tear gas. Dark smoke, burnt tyres and injuries to dozens sullied the war zone-like ambience. Ssangyong’s bankruptcy is typical of falling sales and mounting debts of employers. Once South Korea’s fifth largest carmaker, Ssangyong started going downhill after being acquired by China’s Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation. None of the expected benefits of the expanded access to the vast Chinese market came through. Heavy tariffs and bureaucratic hurdles in China crushed hopes that Ssangyong’s new ownership would herald magic.

Since the management was Chinese and the labor force Korean, an additional itch of nationalism vitiated the atmosphere. Trouble brewed up in December 2008, when unionized workers took shanghai Auto officials hostage and accused them of stealing proprietary technology. Matters reached a fever pitch in April 2009, as 900employees barricaded themselves to ‘die together’ or receive guarantees of reinstatement
and a state bailout. The fracas that followed saw helicopters and water cannons
being hauled in.

One factor aggravating the unemployment-related turmoil in the South Korea is its heated political culture, where disputes often end up in fisticuffs. This applies to autoworkers as politicians, who openly brawl and hurl abuses during legislative
impasses. The country’s fragile institutions have failed to channel clashing interests towards democratic resolution. Ssangyong’s workers characteristically laid down arms and agreed to end their 77-day sitting only after much bloodshed and extreme militant activism. South Korea illustrates a classic dilemma where in employers seek flexibility to shed workers during economic slumps but workers feel entitled to a regime of lifetime employment guarantees. Up the mid-1990s, galloping economic growth cushioned South Korean businesses to finance the legendary “iron rice bowl”. But this social bargain tripped up against international competition and financial woes, which forced employers to seek legislation for ‘hire and fire’.

Across the waters in Japan, distraught temporary workers have resorted to open defiance of management in a desperate bid to retain their vanishing jobs. Laid-off short-term contract employees of the Canon digital camera company and the Toyota motor company aired their frustration in late 2008 by publicly lashing out at managers near factory gates in full view of television crews.

Like South Korea, Japan’s old system of lifetime employment guarantees could not be sustained as its exports fell into the red. In an economy where layoffs used to be last-resort devices, the sudden shock of temporary workers being shown the door has causes social soul-searching. Apart from the economic black hole awaiting the jobless, the psychological blow of living without work when companies previously used to ‘take care’ of employees is mortifying. For a thoroughly conservative country like Japan, we now have the local Communist Party claiming that its membership is swelling by a monthly average of 1,000 laid-off workers.

Even in the west, nerves are frayed due to rising workers militancy over joblessness. France, which has a South Korea like culture of truculent unions and obdurate management, has witnessed hostage-taking of executives by workers on the factory floors. The threat of job cutbacks is enough to prompt French unions to try preemptive measures to force the issue. That the French industrial landscape is littered with bad blood is an indictment of its rambunctious unions and cussed corporations.

The US has so far been relatively quieter. But in December 2008, when a vinyl manufacturing plant in Chicago abruptly laid off its largely Hispanic workers and the allegation was that this was without due notice and severance pay, workers occupied the floors in ‘takeover’ reminiscent of the 1930s. As with other such cases around the world, Chicago’s local culture of labor movements influenced this burst of activism.

So, here’s a pattern, where there is local history of union militancy and jobs are under threat, militant unionism is becoming a response. What does this tell us? Designing safety nets that can withstand rough economic times is crucial. So is the
necessity of responsible unionism.

Sreeram Chaulia is associate professor of world politics at the Jindal Global Law School