Korea must respect rule of law

 

By Ahn Choong-yong

Once again, Korea has felt the traumatic ripple effects of a labor union’s illegal strike.

Unionists of the state-run railway operator Korea Railway Corp. (KORAIL) last month staged a 22-day walkout, the longest ever of its kind, bringing the country’s railway service to a near halt.

Union members protested the government’s plan to establish a KORAIL affiliate, which they suspected to be part of a privatization scheme despite the government’s denials.

The faceoff between the government’s firm commitment to applying disciplinary measures by the rule of law and the union’s unyielding strike to protect its vested monopoly interest ended with a tripartite negotiation by leading lawmakers from the governing and opposition parties and labor union when the strikers seemed to accept the government ultimatum to return to work.

The strike’s effects on the public have been far-reaching. Citizens experienced traffic inconveniences during their commute. The construction industry suffered from a reduced or ceased supply of cement.

On a personal note, a college reunion I was supposed to attend in Seoul with alumni living in Daegu was delayed due to the cancellation of reserved KORAIL tickets.

Prosecutors, meanwhile, were tracking down union leaders for whom the court had approved arrest warrants. Police tried to arrest them for violating labor laws, but they hid at the headquarters of the Korea Confederation of Trade Unions, the more militant of Korea’s two umbrella labor organizations and with which the KORAIL union is affiliated.

Police and union members confronted each other in a skirmish in which some policemen were injured, but the strikers were set free. This contrasted with how ranking congressmen were immediately arrested upon stepping inside police lines during a peaceful demonstration in Washington, D.C., last year.

It is well known that the state-run monopoly KORAIL has been mismanaged for years, causing KORAIL’s debt, with an annual loss of 500 billion won, to snowball to 17 trillion won, or more than triple its yearly sales of 5 trillion won.

KORAIL’s mismanagement has been a symbol of the rapidly rising debt of Korea’s 12 largest debt-laden public enterprises, the total of which mounted to 412 trillion won, or far greater than Korea’s national budget.

Managerial innovation attempts at KORAIL were consistently blocked by union strikes, but past governments have yielded to the union’s demand for such changes as wage hikes and various fringe benefits, reaching a favorable compromise.

Most importantly, the details of financial positions were not fully disclosed. It was the government’s hope that the introduction of a competitive element through the establishment of an independent KORAIL affiliate would harness internal competition as a means of raising managerial efficiency.

At this critical juncture of Korea’s maturing economy and democracy, Korea must establish a rule of law-abiding society.

The rule of law is especially important as an influence on economic development in maturing, developing and transitional countries.

To date, the term “rule of law” has been used primarily in English-speaking countries. Unlike advanced Western countries, Korea has achieved compressed transformation in economic and political systems within a half century.

Under past authoritarian and often dictatorial regimes, even militant activism of labor unions was accepted to expedite a political democracy. This view can no longer be applied, given Korea’s full-blown democracy.

According to the economist F. A. Hayek, “Under the rule of law, individuals should be able to make wise investments and future plans with some confidence in a successful return on investment.”

Simultaneously, “under the rule of law, the government is prevented from stultifying individual efforts by ad hoc action.”

Within the established rules of the game, the individual is free to pursue his personal ends and desires, certain that the powers of government will not be used deliberately to frustrate his efforts. This premise must be absolutely respected by Korean citizens.

As a consequence, such recent illegal strikes as those by KORAIL, at construction sites for high voltage electric transmission towers at Miryang and a naval base at Jeju, must be dealt with under the rule of law if Korea wishes to become a mature and sustainable economy.