Origins of the Korean Labour Movement

[Extract] Since the mid-1980s, industrial relations researchers (Kim Byung-whan, 1988; Park Yong-ki, 1993, 137-171) and other social scientists, for example Wilkinson (1994a, 79-114; 1994b) have directed their attentions to industrial relations and, even more focussed, to labour organisations (Kim Hwang-joe, 1993, 133-161) in South Korea (the Republic of Korea, hereafter referred to as Korea). Others (Yoo Sangjin and Lee Sang M, 1993) have emphasised the uniqueness of Korea's business conglomerates, especially their relationship with the state (Moon Chung-in, 1994, 142-166), and including their employment practices (Kwon Seung-ho and Leggett, 1994). Australian researchers have sought lessons for Australian public policy from the Korean industrial relations phenomena (Lansbury and Zappala, 1990) and, attracted by Korea's status, along with Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong, as an Asian Newly Industrialised Country (NIC), some American and Korean scholars (Deyo, 1989; Koo, 1990; Vogel, 1991) have inter alia used comparative methods to illustrate the directive role of the state in shaping the industrialisation process. In particular, for Korea, it has been the apparent political transition of the country from state authoritarianism towards a more democratic scheme of things that has inspired the more recent commentators (Rauenhorst, 1990).