Joseon's precedent for labor-management relations

By Ahn Seung-jun

After going through with the Imjin War and the Manchu War of 1636, the Joseon Kingdom (1392-1910) experienced substantial changes starting from the base of society from the late 17th century.

The basic change began with the slave population that took up 2/3 of the population at the time. Many slaves had grievances against Joseon society. As a result, various mutual-aid communities called gye such as gumgye, saljugye and hyangdogye were established. Gumgye and Saljugye were established by slaves to do their masters bodily harm with weapons like swords. The members were mostly the lower class people who experienced a lot of dissatisfaction with society.

Forming gye communities was an aggressive measure that the slaves could take but they soon were overwhelmed by the mighty wall of harsh reality as they suffered many losses. Therefore, the slaves chose the best alternative plan. It was to escape. The escape of a slave was an indirect way of resistance, yet an effective way to inconvenience the ruling class. The escaping of slaves that were human-beings, yet at the same time also property, emasculated the ruling class and, at the same time, created a motivation to fundamentally change Joseon society.

Escaping was the most effective way for slaves to get away from the payment of slave-ransom or fatigue duty. That is why the escape of slaves was prevalent in the late Joseon period.

Joseon era document for promoting coexistence of noblemen and slaves (in 1801) / Courtesy of the Academy of Korean Studies

Did the Joseon noblemen who were well-educated with a basic Confucius philosophy handle the complaints and resistance from the lower class only by force? Wasn't there any other option between noblemen and slaves?

Let's think putting ourselves in the shoes of the noblemen who owned the slaves. In order to maximize their interest while legally owning slaves, it was best to promote a coexistence with the slaves. And one of the win-win policies was to sign a gye (a kind of traditional private fund popular among Koreans, whose members chip in a modest amount of money and take turns to receive a lump sum share.) with slaves. By signing a gye between the noblemen and slaves, they could improve their relationship in helping each other. Gye has turned their incompatible relationships into a symbiotic relationship.

In Joseon society, gye was a necessary way to start a relationship. There were numerous kinds of gyes in Joseon society such as hakgye for graduates in the same institutions or provincial schools, dongbanggye for passers of gwageo exams in the same year, donggapgye for people of the same age, donggye for people who lived in th same village, munjunggye for people who have the same family name and sanggye for people to prepare for a funeral. Then, gye that are knitted by people in different classes were created. It is the nojugye. This was established in order to seek the interests of noblemen and slaves alike. Due to the fact that slaves made agreements on even with their masters, this nojugye became a turning point for the social status system of the Joseon to topple down.

The following material is a contract document for the nojugye that was found by the Jangseogak Archives of the Academy of Korean Studies.

According to the document, 10 slaves including people by the name of Ilsun, Chabong, and Hwaridong made a gye with the noblemen, Lee who lived in Gyeongsang Province in 1741 (17th year of King Youngjo's reign). Lee's family was a prestigious family that represented the Gyeongju region. After a discussion, Lee and his 10 slaves decided to make gye setting up 80 du (equal to 1,280kg) of rice as the fund. The 40 du was paid by the master Lee's family and the other 40 du was paid by the slaves. The purpose of gye was to sustain the slaves and their family by making interest earnings on the fund established by the master and slaves together. The master could continuously make profits out of the slaves by ensuring a stable living for the slaves and their family. On the other hand, the slaves needed the funds from the gye to improve the quality of their living and to escape from the duty of being the master's direct servant.

The affairs that noblemen and slaves did with their funds included large-scale labor work or farming. Large-scale labor works included such areas as the construction and repair of buildings, and gathering firewood. These works were actually the slaves' duty but after making gye, they could hire other people to perform the work for them.

Such a change in the relationship between noblemen and slaves had a huge historical significance. Especially for the slaves, gye transformed the master-servant relation that used to be bonds of oppression into the labor-management relations. This is the historical significance of nojugye. Like this, our history took a great step forward. In this respect, the establishment and operation of nojugye promoted coexistence, in other words a win-win policy of slaves and noblemen even though it was temporary from an overall historical perspective.

Including the nojugye document, a series of ancient documents privately owned were investigated and collected through a research project conducted by the Jangseogak Archives of the Academy of Korean Studies in the last 30 years.
Each ancient document has unique content and reflects the stories of individual's lives. Thus, the ancient documents have high value as storytelling materials. The Academy of Korean Studies has been collecting and filming about a million pieces of ancient documents to utilize the Korean studies materials.

Among them, about 50,000 pieces are now housed in the Jangseogak Archives. As sourcebooks, 110 books of the Korean Historical Manuscript Collection were published, and the content is being serviced through the website, too. (Center for Korean Studies Materials: http://www.kostma.net)

The writer is a senior researcher of the Academy of Korean Studies in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province. Joseon's precedent for labor-management relations.