The newest Koreans

By Bernard Rowan

Migrant workers in South Korea are a small group, relatively speaking. They account for less than five percent of the population. They stick out like a sore thumb to parochialists of culture because they often come from China or other Asian nations. Nonetheless, migrant workers are an important Korean population because they perform the kinds of jobs that other Korean workers don't want to perform. They make up the slack for an economy with declining numbers of people willing to perform necessary tasks in the second and third economic ranks. Underpaid and overworked compared to their Korean counterparts, they toil under multiple burdens. Let's highlight their plight and talk about progress to continue.

Migrant workers come to Korea because they seek better lives. They work to send money home to their families. They take what some publications call "3D jobs" (dirty, dangerous, and degrading). Most Koreans couldn't and dream of their work conditions. Treated with disrespect by many in the wider population, migrant workers absorb this stigma. Why should Koreans view them as undesirables, or revile them for taking jobs employers make available? The implicit opportunity for Korean democracy also currently limits Korea's development as an advanced nation.

I'm not trying to say this problem is uniquely Korean. It characterizes the experiences of migrant workers universally. They live as a "minority" in a larger society. Too many lack education, income, wealth, and social power. Most serve as convenient scapegoats for economic and cultural ills. They lack the cultural voice to defend themselves. Their lot strikes few as offensive. Globalizing societies should need to tell themselves, "How far or little have we humans come!"

I suppose no one can expect more of Korean citizens than of others in the world. However, Confucius proscribes scapegoating. Assume Koreans don't or shouldn't exclude foreign workers from basic humane and civil treatment. Why? On Confucian grounds, discrimination and contempt for migrants violates the principles of harmony, prohibition on scapegoating, and belief in self-development. These values form the core of Korean Confucian thinking in the present. They form implications of the Korean constitution and laws of the land as well. They extend the evolving democratic spirit of the nation.

After all, how some Koreans have viewed and treated migrant workers has important parallels. It mirrors how their ancestors experienced work in other countries. It repeats how many Korean citizens suffered as workers under occupation by Imperial Japan. It copies how "second-class" Korean people in Japan, China, and elsewhere live today when they are in the minority.

"Don't do to others below you what you wouldn't want to suffer from those above you," is one way to frame the prohibition on scapegoating. How hard did Korean industrial workers have to work and what did they have to suffer to become organized? Better to view this part of the Korean story of democratization positively. It's good to see that Koreans and the government begin to respect the social and political needs of migrant workers.

Last year, the Korean government took steps to respect migrant workers. It took too long, but a recognized union now forms the basis for migrant workers to organize collectively, follow their interests, and seek redress for grievances in the broader society.

Korea continues her march forward in Asia and the world. However, providing respect for the rights of migrant workers and improving their work and living conditions, don't count as choices, frankly. Korea's strengths and limits find expression in the lives of Korea's migrant workers. The least socially powerful and dispossessed mark a horizon. This is true in Seoul, Busan, and in the countryside of your beautiful nation.

Advanced nations typically face declining birthrates, aging populations, and growing shortages of many kinds of workers. Korea should see in migrant workers a new population of people deserving respect and, in time, new groups of Korean citizens. The uniformity that historically typifies Korea as a culture and nation evanesces a bit. That's okay! Korean democracy will fulfill its potential as and according to how it treats migrant workers, the new Koreans.

Bernard Rowan is associate provost for contract administration and professor of political science at Chicago State University, where he has served for 22 years. He is a past fellow of the Korea Foundation and former visiting professor at Hanyang University. Reach him at browan10@yahoo.com.

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