Korean skilled workers : toward a labor aristocracy

Resource Information

The work Korean skilled workers : toward a labor aristocracy represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Bowdoin College Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Korean skilled workers : toward a labor aristocracy

Title remainder

toward a labor aristocracy

Statement of responsibility

Hyung-A Kim

Creator

• Kim, Hyung-A, 1948-

Contributor

• EBSCOhost

Author

• Kim, Hyung-A, 1948-

Subject

• Labor movement -- Korea (South) -- History -- 20th century
• Labor policy -- Korea (South) -- History -- 20th century
• Skilled labor -- Korea (South) -- History -- 20th century
• 1900-1999
• Economic development -- Korea (South) -- History -- 20th century

Language

eng

Summary

"Korean Skilled Workers is the first book to systematically examine the sociopolitical trajectory of South Korea's skilled workers in heavy and chemical industries (HCI). Following the commencement of the Park Chung Hee regime's HCI project in 1972, the Great Workers' Struggle of 1987, and subsequent union militancy, a "labor aristocracy" evolved. In contrast to the uncertain situation of millions of nonregular workers in South Korea today, regular workers achieved guaranteed job security, superior wages, and other benefits. Research on Korean workers has focused on their struggle against political oppression, economic exploitation, and cultural prejudice. In contrast, this study demonstrates that the most enduring struggle of Korea's industrial workers was for wage increases and stable employment, not for a wider revolutionary socialist movement. Korean Skilled Workers draws on archival records and in-depth interviews of HCI workers of three main heavy manufacturing firms (including Hyundai Heavy Industry) to portray these individuals and their vastly changed collective trajectory, showing how their paths embody the consequences of Korea's rapid development, such as the shift from state-led to chaebol̆-led capital accumulation and the limits of a broad-based labor solidarity in the context of a counter-offensive against the strength of the radical unionism of the 1980s"--

Member of

• Korean studies of the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies

Assigning source

Provided by publisher

Cataloging source

NhCcYBP

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

index present

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

• dictionaries
• bibliography

Series statement

Korean studies of the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies