I am an editorial writer at The Korea Times, focusing on foreign policy, North Korea and domestic politics. My key areas of interest include North Korea, foreign interference in elections, election integrity, cyberattacks and human rights. Prior to joining the Editorial Board, I served as both Politics Desk editor and Culture Desk editor. During my career, I have reported on the Presidential Office under the Lee Myung-bak administration, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Assembly.
Sweatshop workers laid foundation for 'Miracle on Han River'
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By Kang Hyun-kyung
City council member recalls sacrifices of young female workers
By Kang Hyun-kyung
In the 1970s and 1980s, Han Myoung-hee hated being called “gongsuni,” a term for a less educated, young female manufacturing worker.
For the first five years after she got her first job at the U.S. supercomputer company Control Data Corporation (CDC) in Seoul in 1970, Han, now a city council member, did not talk about her job to her mother and five siblings because of the negative perception of such workers.
Han Myoung-hee, a sweatshop worker-turned-Seoul City Council member, speaks during an interview at her office. / Korea Times
“In those days, manufacturing workers were underappreciated despite their critical role in the Miracle on the Han River,” she told The Korea Times on Sept. 7 in her office at the Seoul Metropolitan Council.
At that time, she said she had no other career options because she had no high school diploma. She got the CDC job years after she graduated from middle school.
Han, now 63, was determined to change attitudes toward her profession after she joined the union at her company.
“I thought it was not fair for me as a unionist to feel ashamed of my job because as long as I had no pride in my profession, it would be difficult for me to represent other workers in negotiations with management representatives.”
This sign identifies the Korea Industrial Park in Guro District. Stretched over 1.98 million square kilometers in the district, the industrial zone was home to tens of thousands of companies that produced labor-intensive goods. / Korea Times
She served as a union leader from 1980 until 1982 when CDC closed its Seoul plant as part of downsizing efforts. Thereafter, she got jobs at several different sweatshops that required employees to work 12 hours or more without adequate financial compensation.
Her extensive experience as a manufacturing worker prompted her to become an advocate for the rights of underprivileged people in the city council.
One of Han’s accomplishments was working with fellow council members to pass resolutions for the creation of jobs for disabled women and part-time workers, and the protection of the rights of sexual minorities.
“I myself had been a minority for several decades before I was elected to the city council in 2010. So I felt it was natural for me to take an interest in protecting the rights of underprivileged people.”
Korean exports reached the $1 million mark in 1977. The government celebrated the historic event at the Jangchung Gymnasium in Seoul. / Korea Times
Han said Korea’s “miraculous” economic growth in the 1970s and 1980s would not have been possible without manufacturing workers who endured long working hours and who sacrificed themselves for their families. She is saddened that these workers’ contributions to the economy were forgotten as the economy improved.
Sweatshops in the 1970s and 1980s were the unintended result of the Park Chung-hee government’s drive to achieve export-led economic growth. Under the motto “Exports make or break the economy,” the government created the Guro Industrial Park, a 1.98 million square kilometer industrial zone in Seoul to help small and medium manufacturing companies produce and export labor-intensive goods, such as clothing, wigs and electronic devices.
The role of young female workers, aged between 15 and 20, who accounted for nearly 80 percent of the workers in the zone, was critical to the Korean economy’s double-digit economic growth in the 1970s.
In 1978, a year after Korean exports reached the $1 million mark, approximately 114,000 blue collar workers were employed inside the park. Exported goods produced there accounted for nearly 10 percent of the nation’s total.
President Park Chung-hee, second from left in front row, and his wife Yuk Young-soo cut a ribbon at the opening ceremony for a trade fair held in 1968 to commemorate the designation of the Guro Industrial Park. / Korea Times
Average sweatshop workers were elementary or middle school graduates from poor families in rural areas. They flocked to urban areas for work, as their families were unable to finance their education.
They worked 12 hours or more per day in poor conditions. Their compensation, however, didn’t reflect their hard work and long working hours. According to Han, she and her colleagues’ average monthly income at an apparel company in Seongsu-dong in 1983 was less than 60,000 won (around $60).
The young workers sent a certain portion of their income to their parents back home, for living expenses and their siblings’ schooling. Their younger siblings were able to go to college because of their older sisters’ sacrifices as sweatshop workers in the city.
To save on living expenses, the young workers would share a small room with three or four roommates who also came to make money. Some of them even saved money on food, forgoing decent meals.
“When I worked at the apparel company in Seongsu, I remember all of us having to work during sizzling summer days while listening to Christmas carols,” Han said. According to her, the factory had neither air conditioners nor fans and so played Christmas carols continuously during working hours to help the workers feel cool.
Despite the tough working conditions, the sweatshop workers didn’t lose their dream of a better future. After work, many of them went to high school in the evening.
In those times, Han recalled, many companies, facing labor shortages, decided to add high school education to their compensation packages to attract young girls who had forgone educational opportunities because of poverty.
“In retrospect, people had different reasons for continuing their studies. Some of us wanted to learn, and some wanted to use their high school diploma as a way to further their career. All of us dreamed of going to college, but it was such a distant, unrealistic dream because of the tough economic reality we faced,” she said.
“One thing for sure, though, is that all of us knew that education was the best way to succeed. We didn’t want to be trapped in manufacturing jobs all our lives. That’s why most of us went to high school at night despite chronic fatigue from long working hours during the day.”
Education, indeed, helped many of these young women in their careers. According to Han, some became very successful, founding their own apparel businesses and becoming community activists.
The Guro Industrial Park has undergone dramatic changes in the past few decades. Now home to nearly 10,000 IT startups, the district has become a concrete forest of modern, state-of-the art high-rises. Every day, many new businesses are created in the district, some of which succeed, and some of which fail.
Amid these changes in the district, the central and local governments have taken measures to commemorate the legacy of the countless female sweatshop workers who sacrificed their time, effort and dreams for the betterment of their families, communities and country.
Last year, the Industrial Complex Corp. hosted an event to celebrate the restoration of the Statue of Exports, a statue of a female manufacturing worker holding a torch in her right hand and a globe in her left hand. It was established in the Guro Industrial Park in 1974 during the Park Chung-hee government to recognize the workers’ sacrifices.
In a speech during the event, Kang Nam-hoon, chairman of the corporation, noted that the dedication and sacrifices of the numerous female workers laid the groundwork for Korea’s economic miracle.