Racism Paper 2nd Version[1]

7/31/2019 Racism Paper 2nd Version[1]

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Neoliberal Capitalism, Racism and Migrant Workers in South Korea:Beginning the Discussion

The South Korean migrant workers movement is now entering is third decade. In the last

twenty years, the issues facing migrant workers have become well known in South Korean

society. We have also had some significant gains. These include the abolition of the trainee

system, gaining the right to industrial accident insurance and severance pay for undocumented

migrant workers, the establishment of MTU and its recognition by the Seoul High Court, the UN

and the ILO. Nonetheless, I think it is fair to say that, right now, we are flailing. The pool of

migrant activists has been drastically weakened by government repression. Meetings of the

Alliance for Migrants Equality and Human Rights go around in circles unable to find direction.

KCTU has set target numbers for migrant worker organizing, but has no real organizing plan.And, most importantly, we have not figured out a way to reproduce and empower migrant

leadership. All of this makes me feel like we need to develop a new framework and a new

direction. I believe that to find this framework and direction, we need a clearer understanding of

the exploitation of migrant workers as part and parcel of neoliberal global capitalism and the

flexible labor regimes it engenders. I also believe that we have to understand how racism

supports and is supported by these systems, and how it shapes the lives of migrant workers and

their children. In what follows I attempt to develop this understanding.

I have three principle goals in this paper. The first is to explain what racism is and how it

manifests in South Korean society, particularly with respect to migrant workers. The second is to

place migration within a global context, and specifically to investigate how neoliberalism shapes

migration to South Korea. The third is to begin a discussion of what analysis of racism and a

global(internationalist?) perspective on migration means about what the migrant workers

movement in South Korea should be doing.

The paper is divided into four sections. In the first, I give a theoretical and historical

explanation of race and racism and their relationship to global capitalism. In the second section, I

locate migration as a phenomenon shaped by the international division of labor. I also

demonstrate how neoliberalism shapes migration by looking specifically at out-migration from

the Philippines and South Koreas rise as a country of destination since the late 1980s. In this

discussion I try to pay attention to the way racism interacts with the regimes of flexible


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production and labor that shape migrants lives. In the third section, I look at some of the specific

form that racism towards migrant workers in South Korea takes at the levels of policy and

representation. In particular, I try to demonstrate the relationship between immigration policy

that relegates migrant workers to the category of foreigner, racial representations of migrant

workers as inferior and capitalist exploitation. In the final section, I discuss the implications of

an anti-racist, internationalist perspective for the South Korean migrant workers movement. This

presentation is a first attempt to put these ideas onto paper and out into the space of the South

Korean movement. It is definitely not a final product, but rather means to provide a basis for

communication and food for thought and debate.

I. Race and RacismI will begin by define race and racism theoretically and historically. To do so, I draw heavily

on the experience of the United States and the work of American scholars. This is in part because

the history of the United States is intimately bound up with the history of racism, just as

American society is fundamentally shaped by the experience of race. More than this, however, it

is because I am most familiar with American racism and racist theorists. Clearly, therefore, this

discussion has many limitations.

a. RaceAmerican race theorists Michael Omi and Howard Winant offer the following definition of

race: [A] concept which signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests by referring to

different types of human bodies.1 This definition begins from an understanding of race as

socially constructed. To say that race is socially constructed is to recognize that while racial

designations make reference to essential or pseudo-essential qualities or physical characteristics,

there is in fact no biological basis for different racial groupings.2 Because of this, racial

categories have varied significantly over time and locality. Take, for example, the term Asian.

In South Korea, Asian is increasingly used to refer to people from countries such as Vietnam,

Indonesia, the Philippines, Nepal and Bangladesh, who have migrated to Korea in large numbers

since the late 1980s. The designation Asian marks these people as essentially different from

1 Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States from the 1960s to the 1990s, 2nd Ed. (New York andLondon: Routledge, 1994), 55.2 Omi and Winant, 4.


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native Koreans and often as inferior, the objects of scorn, pity, charity and education. (Think for

example of the term used to designate the children born of one Korean parent and one

parent from a South, or South East Asian country, the names of the centers and

or Asian Brothers, the name the singing group formed by the multi-nationalgroup of migrant workers in,, which incidentally, includes one woman.)On the 2000

United States census, however, Asian referred to: A person having origins in any of the

original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent including, for

example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands,

Thailand, and Vietnam. The differentconstructions of Asian in South Korea and the United

States have been formed in different economic, social and policy contexts of the two countries.

To say that race is social constructed is not to say that it is a mere illusion. Rather, race has

real influence on society and politics and plays a role in shaping institutions and identities.3 To

understand how this happens, it is helpful to understand race as an element of common sense4 or

ideology that shapes and is shaped through social practices.5 As common sense embedded in

social practices ranging from everyday interactions to the development and implementation of

state policy, race becomes an element of social structure with deep meaning, but also not

impervious to change.6

Omi and Winants definition also highlights the fact that concepts of race are, from the start,

laced with conflict. The creation an ordering of racial categories is fundamentally related to

hegemonic processes through which particular groups establish economic, cultural and political

control and through which particular regimes of accumulation are maintained.7 For this reason,

concepts of racial difference always have designations of inferiority and superiority implicitly or

explicitly embedded within them. It is important to emphasize, however, that race is often not a

3 Omi and Winant, vii.4 I follow Omi and Winant in using a Gramcsian definition of common sense, which has been further developed by

latter scholars, most especially Ramon Williams. See, Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, Quentin Hoareand Geoffrey Nowell Smith, ed. and trans. (New York: International Publishers, 1971); Raymond William,Marxism andLiterature(Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1977).5I am here using drawing from Althussers theory of ideology and interpellation, which posits that individuals areinterpellated as [ideological] subjects through material ritual practice[s] of ideological recognition. Louis Althusser,Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes Towards and Investigation), Lenin and Philosophy and other Essays,trans. Ben Brewster (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2001), 117. I believe this theory is also consistent with Omi andWinants discussion.6 Omi and Winant, 55.7 Omi and Winant, 56. This is a summary of the Gramscian conception of hegemony. See above, ft. 13.


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consciously fabricatedjustification for inequality, but rather a semi or subconscious

naturalization of it.

Many people believe that racial categories and the prejudices and inequalities based on them

have existed from the beginning of human history as part of our nature. In fact, however, the

concept race with which we are familiar first arose only 400 hundred ago in the context of New

World colonization, the African slave trade and the establishment of the world capitalist system.

It developed as Europeans sought explanations for their domination over indigenous Americans

and enslavement of Africans that sounded and felt like common sense.8

[[[ If we look at the experience of the early

American colonies we can see how ideas of race developed in the context of the establishment of

the New World economy and society. Lets take Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English

settlement in North America. Settled by an expedition financed by the Virginia Company of

London in 1607, Jamestown, like other North American colonies, required an agricultural labor

force in order to become a profitable venture. The colonist first attempted to force indigenous

Americans to take on this role, but failed because the indigenous people knew the land much

better than them and could simply escape. The colonists then turned to the use of white

indentured servants, who provided the majority of the labor required by Jamestown settlers for

most of the 1600s.9 While some African slaves were brought to the colonies they were at the

time a more expensive form of labor, and so were only present in small numbers. As the centurywore on, however, indentured servants became less and less profitable: They had to be constantly

replaced when their contracts ended. Some also set up their own farms once they were free and

could become competitors. Finally, they were increasingly influenced by the revolutionary ideas

of individual freedom circulating in England in the mid-1600s and had a tendency to demand

their rights as Englishmen to better conditions. Where as at the beginning of the century

indentured servants had been a less expensive source of labor than African slaves, by the end of

the century this relationship had been reversed. The colonists thus turned to the large-scale

importation of African slaves as a practical means for cutting labor costs.

As this changed occurred, the colonists established laws that defined the status of blacks in

the colonies. Initially, blacks lived in various states (free, servant, slave), mingled socially with

8 On first scientific attempt to categories people as racist, see education booklet, 7.9 Explain indentured servant


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white workers (free, servant) and had a variety of political rights. After the switch to slaves as

the principle source of labor power, laws were drawn up that made blacks slave for life,

designated whites as freemen and erected social barriers between the two groups. White

freemen were given the vote, while a Slave Code was established that regulate that use and

treatment of black slaves, and make sure their status was maintained. There were two reasons for

the establishment of these laws. The first was the need for a legal structure to regulate a new

labor relationship that developed once the cost of slaves outstripped the cost of indentured

servants. The second was fear of rebellion of a united multi-racial underclass. Such a rebellion

had occurred 1676, making this fear more acute.10 Clear hierarchal differentiation of whites and

blacks secured the loyalty of poor whites and provided a more easily controlled enslaved labor

force for the colonys ruling class. The ideology of distinct races and white superiority developed

as colonists wrote the Slave Code and explained it to themselves and each other. It was then

reproduced through the everyday economic and cultural practices of a society centered on racial

slavery until the Civil War.11 At the same time, slave labor in the South and the Atlantic slave

trade produced the wealth that was invested in textiles, shipbuilding and other emerging

capitalist enterprises in the Northeast of America and Europe, as Marx clearly recognized.12 It is

not a stretch, therefore, to say that the advent of race and racial domination was fundamentally

intertwined with the advent of global capitalism. ]]

Since the abolition of slavery, race and racism have been reproduced in different formsduring different phases of capitalism. They took the form of Jim Crow segregation that kept

white and black worker legally divided from the late 19th century until the 1960s in the U.S.,

helping to shore up white planters control over black agricultural labor in the South. They were

also reproduced and elaborated in the context of Western imperialism at the turn of the last

century through the establishment of relationships of dominance and dependency between

imperialist nations and their colonies and the unequal relationship between westerners and

natives within the colonies themselves. At this time colonization and racist social structures were

given supposedly objective backing by the categorization and hierarchal ordering of different

10Bacons rebellion.11 For this history see Fields, Morgan.12 In Capital, Vol. IMarx writes, The discovery of goal and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement, andentombment in mines of the indigenous population of the continent, the beginnings of the conquest and plunder ofIndia, and the conversion of Africa into a preserve for the commercial hunting of black skins are all things thatcharacterize the dawn of capitalist production (915).


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racial groups by European scientists. As European capitalism expanded across the world

incorporating different areas unevenly into a global system of production, so too did racism,

shaping relationships within and between countries. As Balibars writes, Race, and therefore

racism, is the expression, the promoter and consequence of the geographical concentrations

associated with the axial division of labor.13 Another favorite scholar has explained the

relationship between race and capitalism as follows: [T]he entire history of the capital mode of

production and its ever-expanding global reach has been organized through the structuring of

[racial, gender, etc.] difference The accumulation of capital continues to take place through the

social and legal differentiation of labor.14 As will be shown below, today racism works through

laws that regulate immigration and foreign labor.

b. Racism

Above I have used race to refer to ideological grouping of people. The concept of racism I

employ goes beyond seeing it as simple ideology or individual prejudice. Rather, racism refers

to a system of domination and oppression based on racial categories, which is developed,

maintained and altered through the interaction of individual prejudice, ideology, law and policy.

Like patriarchy and gender oppression, systemic racism is fundamentally related to, although not

identical with, global capitalism. Individual acts of racial discrimination or acts which preserve

the unequal access of racialized groups to information, skills and resources, government policy

that limit the rights of racialized groups, and racial representations are all important elements of

systemic racism. The interplay of these elements with one another over time shapes inequalities

in resources, opportunities and power, forming a racist social structure that simultaneously

supports and justifies the system of capitalist accumulation and the hegemony of the groups who

benefit from it.

13 Balibar, 1991, 80.14 Lowe, 159. Peter Bohmer has identified the following ways in which racism supports capitalism within nationaleconomies: 1) It permits employers to pay lower wages to black [and other people of color] than to white workers. Thedifference between the wages of black[/people of color] workers measures the superexploitationof black[/people of color]workers and the super profits of capital; 2) Racist ideology is accepted in varying degrees by most white workersdecreas[ing] the ability of workers to unite across racial lines and struggle as a unified group..; 3) Racist ideology makesblacks unemployment more acceptable than white unemployment to white society. It is therefore easier to maintainhigher unemployment (in Marxist terms, a larger reserve army of labor) than if whites and blacks share unemploymentequally. By reducing worker bargaining power, higher unemployment lowers the average wage and thus, increases theprofit rate (2).


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II. Global Capitalism, Migration, Neoliberalism and Racism

a. Migration and the International Division of Labor

Global capitalism functions through and maintains a world system that organizes nations and

regions in unequal relations and creates linkages between them through trade, investment and

labor flows. This system has enabled international migration on several levels. First, the

internationalization of production has involved the development of export agriculture and export

manufacturing in peripheral areas, which tends to displace portions of the population by

transforming subsistence workers into wage labor. Displaced workers migrate first to urban

centers within their own countries and then to other more developed countries if employment

opportunities in those urban centers are not sufficient. In addition, trade and investment between

countries creates what Saskia Sassen has called cultural linkages between disparate places.

Workers producing goods that will be exported to developed countries, often in companies

owned by capitalists from developed countries, gain information and knowledge about these

countries through this contact. This making emigration to these countries imaginable and

desirable. To say it in another way, export economies and foreign investment in less developed

countries make previously settled workers mobile and then create material and cultural linkages

between countries of origin and countries of destination. Migrants travel along these linkages in

a reverse direction from capital.15

In the last thirty years, neoliberal globalization has increase inequalities within and between

rural areas and between the countries of the global North and global South.16 The fact that this

inequalities fall generally along racial lines is no accident. Rather it arises from uneven

incorporation of different regions into global capitalism that has occurred along with the

development of racial categories and racist social structures. Race works to erase this historical

unevenness by naturalizing unequal relationship as arising from the essential traits of different

peoples: It is the characteristics of the workers (in the global South) themselves, their lack of

sophistication, their helplessness, their lack of skills, their great need, their inferior culture, their

15 Sassen, 1988, 20; 1993, 74.16 The Gini coefficient, which is used to measure inequality between countries, has risen dramatically since 1980, whenneoliberal globalization began in earnest. On a scale from 0 to 100, inequality rose from 46 in 1980 to 54 in 1999 to 67 in2005. According to the UN Development Program, massive inequalities between countries are mirrored withincountries between rich people and poor people, men and women, rural and urban and different regions and groups. Inone study of 73 countries measured between 1960 and 2000, 54 showed rising inequality, 12 showed no change, and only7 showed declining inequality. Andreas Bieler, et. al., The Future of the Global Working Class: An Introduction, inLabour and the Challenges of Globalization: What Prospects for Transnational Solidarity?(2008), 10.


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sexism or else it is the corruption of Southern hemisphere governments, their political

institutions and their (racialized) employers that are to blame for their poverty.17

Inequalities in income and opportunity closely influence the direction of migration waves

that bring racialized subjects to more developed countries and migration has increased as

neoliberal globalization proceeds. Statistics recorded by the International Organization of

Migration show the number of migrants in the world doubling between 1965 and 2002 from 75

to 150 million. By 2002, there were an estimated 185 million, 2% of the world population. At

present the figure has thought to have grown to 200 million or 3% of the word population.18 Of

course, migration occurs due to a combination of factors including economic conditions, war and

political instability, historical political and cultural ties between countries, previous traditions of

migration and individual choice. We cannot, therefore, say that neoliberalism, by itself, creates

migration. Nonetheless, neoliberal policies have greatly accelerated and shaped the direction and

character of migration over the least three to four decades. Trade liberalization and the structural

adjustment policies of the World Bank and IMF are major causes of the gap in income and

unemployment opportunities between nations and regions. They also play a large role in

displacing workers in poor countries from their local livelihoods. One of the most dramatic

examples of the relation between neoliberal policies and migration is the effect of NAFTA on

rural Mexican populations. According to the AFL-CIOs Solidarity Center, [T]he flood of cheap

agricultural products from the U.S. following the implementation of the North American Free

Trade Agreement (NAFTA) displaced 1.7 million small-scale Mexican farmers and destroyed

the agricultural economy in Mexico. Having lost their livelihoods, and faced with few

employment opportunities in rural areas, agricultural workers migrated to urban areas in Mexico

to compete for jobs. This migration resulted in lower wages in urban centers and displaced

workers who, in turn, migrated to countries such as the United States in search of work.19

b. Neoliberalism and Philippine Out-migration

17 Cite Bonacich and Wilson.18 Stephen Castle and Mark J. Miller, The Age of Migration, 3rdEdition(New York: Guilford Publications, Inc., 2003), 4.While some scholars insist that previous waves of migration such as the 59 million people who left Europe between1846 and 1939 were of similar scale, these authors note that the vast numbers of undocumented migrants in the presentday means that the actual scale of migration is much higher than official statistics (4-5).19Neha Misra, The Push and Pull of Globalization: Ho the Global Economy Makes Migrant Workers Vulnerable toExploitation, Solidarity Center Policy Brief (August 2007), 2. For a rich historical and sociological explanation of thisprocess see David Bacon, Illegal People.


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In the future it will be worthwhile to conduct an in depth study of the specific ways in which

neoliberal policies, along with political instability and war, influence the migration of the various

national groups now present in large numbers in South Korea. This is not possible at present.

Instead, I will here substitute a brief look at one case: the Philippines.20 I have chosen the

Philippines because it has been the largest source of permanent international immigrants from

Asia since 1990, and is now the largest Asian contributor to the global flows of temporary

migrant labor.21 There are now roughly 48,000 Filipinos in South Korea, making them the third

largest group of migrant workers in the country next to Chinese (including Chinese Koreans) and

Vietnamese.

Pressure to emigrate in the Philippines has been caused by poverty, under and unemployment

over the last thirty years that have persisted at the same time as income levels in nearby countries

have increased. In the 1970s, the Philippines had a higher per capita income than Thailand.

Today, it has one of the lowest per capita incomes in the region, one of the lowest shares of

workers in manufacturing and one of the highest incidences of poverty.22 The well-known

Filipino scholar and activist Walden Bello finds the critical origins of the Philippines economic

stagnation in the IMF/World Bank structural adjustment program imposed on the country in the

early 1980s. The required tightening of fiscal and monetary policy at a time of international

recession led to a downward spiral of private investment and a collapse of the countrys industry.

Pressures by international creditors, the government of Corazon Aquino, opted not to attempt to

make up for the drop in private investment through public expenditures, and instead adopted a

model debtor strategy, hoping to shore up continued access to international capital markets.

Instead of being invested in the domestic economy, government resources flowed out in debt

service payments, which averaged 8% to 10% of the GDP yearly and totaled nearly $30 billion

during the years from 1986 to 1993. To make matters worse, the onerous terms of repayment that

were subject to variable interests rates and the practice of incurring new debt to pay of the old

meant that instead of decreasing, the Philippines foreign debt actually increased from $21.5

billion in 1986 to $29 billion in 1993. Lack of government investment in the economy, along

20 On the fact that migration is not driven only by economic factors.21 Robin Cohen, Migration and its Enemies, 170. In December 2003, the Commission on Filipinos Overseas recorded atotal of 7,763,178 Filipino citizens abroad (roughly 9% of the population) including 2,865,412 permanent settlers,3,385,001 temporary migrants and 1,512,765 undocumented migrants. See for more recent figures:http://www.cfo.gov.ph/pdf/statistics/Stock%202009.pdf.22Philip Martin, Migration and Trade: The Case of the Philippines, International Migration Review, Vol. 27, no. 3 (August1993), 640.


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with political instability and persistent government corruption, made it difficult to attract foreign

investment during the 1980s and early 1990s at a time when surround countries were

successfully bringing in Japanese and other foreign capital.23

In addition to lack of government investment, neoliberal policies enforced through successive

IMF structural adjustment programs have further eroded the Philippines industrial sector and

weakened workers rights. Trade liberalization during the last two and a half decades led to

multiple bankruptcies in manufacturing, resulting in massive layoffs. The textile industry was

particularly hard hit. The combination of tariff cuts and the abuse of duty-free privileges resulted

in a shrinking of the industry from 200 firms in 1970 to less than 10 by the end of the century.

Trade liberalization has also negatively affected the agricultural sector, making the Philippines a

net importer of rice by 1995.24

Finally, trade liberalization has drastically cut government revenues due to decreased

customs collections. In 1994 Executive Order 264 called for a phased reduction of tariffs to 0 to

5 percent over a 10-year period. The result was a fall in customs collections from P64.4 billion to

P41.4 billion between 1995 and 2004, a decrease of over 35%, while the value of imports rose

from $25.5 billion in 1995 to $37.4 billion. As Bello writes, Combined with the outflow of debt

service payments, the collapse in customs revenues precipitated the fiscal implosion, which made

it even more difficult for government to finance the capital expenditures that were necessary to

[stimulate] domestic and foreign investment in order to decisively lift the country from the

stagnation of the eighties and nineties.25

This situation has resulted in persistent low growth rates, the worst in South East Asia

until very recently. From 1990 to 2005, the Philippines growth in GDP per capita averaged only

1.6%. And, while the GDP growth rate has improved in recent years, underemployment and

poverty continue to be a severe problem. While unemployment dropped from over 11% in 2005

to 7.4% in 2011, underemployment has hovered around 20%. Between 2003 and 2006, when the

GDP growth rate averaged 5.4%, the poverty incidence actually increased from 30.0% to

23During the same period, the government of countrys surrounding the Philippines opted for a different strategy,investing heavily in the development of infrastructure. It was their goal to attract Japanese capital, which had beendeterred from domestic investment due to the loss of competitiveness of Japan-based productions after the yen wasdrastically revalued relative to the dollar in 1985.23 The strategy worked to bring in direct foreign investment to countriessuch as Thailand and Indonesia.24 Ligaya Lindio-McGovern, Neo-liberal Globalization in the Philippines: Its Impact on Filipino Women and theirForms of Resistance, 5.25 Bello, 13.


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32.9%.26 At the same time outflows of Filipino migrations have grown steadily since the early

1980s.

Year (as of Jan.) Unemployment (%

workforce as of Jan.)

Underemployment

(% workforce as ofJan.)

2011 7.4 19.4

2010 7.3 19.7

2009 7.7 18.2

2008 7.4 18.9

2007 7.8 21.5

2006 8.1 21.3

2005 11.3 16.1

2004 11.0 17.5

2003 10.6 16.1

2002 10.3 15.9

2001 11.4 16.9

2000 9.3 21.21999 9.0 22.2

1998 8.4 21.7

1997 7.7 21.1

1996 8.3 21.0

1995 8.8 18.6

Philippines: International Migration Out Flows, Remittances and Population Growth

26 Bellow, 2.

Year

International migration statistics

International migrant outflows Filipinomigrants

remittances (inUS$ million)

Temporary

contractworkers

Permanentresidents

Total ofinternational

migrants per year

Yearly growthrate of

internationalmigrants (%)

Population

1984 350,982 41,551 392,533 -- 658.89 53,351,000

1985 372,784 45,269 418,053 6.5 687.20 54,668,000

1986 378,214 49,338 427,552 2.3 680.44 56,004,000

1987 449,271 56,350 505,621 18.3 791.91 57,356,000

1988 471,030 58,020 529,050 4.6 856.81 58,721,000

1989 458,626 55,745 514,371 (2.8) 973.02 60,097,000

1990 446,095 63,149 509,244 0.1 1,181.07 60,703,000

1991 615,019 62,464 677,483 33.0 1,500.29 63,729,000

1992 686,461 64,154 750,615 10.8 2,202.38 65,339,000

1993 696,630 66,390 763,020 1.6 2,229.58 66,982,000

1994 718,407 64,531 782,938 2.6 2,630.11 68,624,000

1995 653,574 56,242 709,816 (9.3) 4,877.51 68,617,000

1996 660,122 60,913 721,035 1.6 4,306.64 69,951,000

1997 747,696 54,059 801,755 11.2 5,741.84 71,549,000

1998 831,643 39,009 870,652 8.6 7,367.99 73,147,000

1999 837,020 40,507 877,527 0.8 6,794.55 74,746,000

2000 841,628 51,031 892,659 1.7 6,050.45 76,348,000

2001 867,599 52,054 919,653 3.0 6,031.27 77,926,000

2002 891,908 57,720 949,628 3.2 6,886.16 79,503,000


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Source: Philippine Migration and Development Statistical Almanac

There have been efforts to attract foreign investment to the Philippines, not entirely without

success. In the mid-1990s, the Ramos government sought to attract FDI by establishing Special

Economic Zones, easing restrictions on property ownership and providing tax breaks for foreign

capital. The idea behind these policies was that foreign direct investment would increase exports

and promote industrialization, creating jobs both within SEZs and in peripheral industries that

would develop to support the needs of SEZs and therefore alleviating unemployment.27 The SEZ,

however, did not have the intended consequences. Between 1995-2005 FDI in SEZ clustered in

region containing the Cavite and Rizal provinces did create a recorded 2 million jobs in that area.

It also, however, stimulated migration from rural areas to that region, such that regional

unemployment actually rose. In addition, the SEZ accelerated the transformation of surrounding

rural areas leading to a decrease in agricultural productivity, thus further stimulating rural to

urban migration. As in the case of Mexico, uprooted rural Filipinos who find themselves in

overcrowded urban areas that lack sufficient stable employment, often turn to overseas migration

as the next step in their attempt to means to supporting families back home. Korean investment

in the Philippines helps to create the material and cultural linkages that bring Filipino migrants to

South Korea.

In addition to the strong economic pressures for emigration, the government of the

Philippines has, since the 1970s, used labor export as a stopgap measure against unemployment

and as means to bring foreign exchange into the economy. In 1974, the Marcos administration

established the manpower exchange program to facilitate the migration of temporary contract

workers to countries throughout the world. Government officials, including Marcos himself,

petitioned governments in the Middle East, Asia, Europe and North America to import Filipinos

as a source of labor. By the time Marcos was deposed in 1986, labor exportation had become

firmly entrenched in the Filipino economy. The government brings in needed revenue through

pre-departure fees and exit taxes and relies heavily on remittances sent home by overseas

workers as form of poverty alleviation and a source of foreign exchange. Remittances now bring

over $8 billion a year into the economy. Moreover, scholars have estimated that without labor

27 Sanders, 5.

2003 867,969 55,137 923,106 (2.8) 7,578.46 81,081,000

2004 933,588 64,924 998,512 8.1 8,550.37 82,663,000


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migration, the rate of unemployment in the Philippines would increase by 40%.28 The

government uses these figures to construct a glorified image of labor migrants as heroes as a

means to promote further migration. Most activists agree, however that reliance on labor export

and remittances allows the government to skirt its responsibility to come up with a real plan for

promoting long-term development. They point out that remittances do little to stimulate

employment since they are generally not invested in employment-generating projects, and

making families dependant on sending their members overseas.29

Stats on Filipino migration to SK

c. Migration to South Korea and South Korean Capital Accumulation

Driven from their homes by transformation of the agricultural economy, poverty, lack of

adequate employment and the government policy of labor export, Filipino migrant workers travel

to countries in the West, the Middle East and increasingly Asia. But, what has made South Korea

an important destination for them and other migrants. The answer to this lies in changes in

changes in South Koreas role in the global division of labor and the structure of accumulation of

the South Korean economy.

Migrant labor has now become a necessity to South Korean accumulation and is thus brought

in and regulated by the government. The original entry of migrant workers, however, occurred

not as a result of efforts by the government or capital to attract them, but rather due to choices

made by those workers themselves. During the 1980s, South Korea seemed a miracle of

capitalist development, at the same time as the fall in oil prices was causing stagnation in the

Middle East, a previously important destination region for Asian migrant labor. South Koreas

rise from periphery to semi-periphery created something of a spectacle for people from other

Asian countries. This advance was, of course, made possible by U.S. aid given with the goal of

fortify South Korea as a bulwark against communism and a junior economic partner of Japan and

violent export-led development under the leadership of anticommunist dictators. Nonetheless,

South Koreas growth caught the attention of people in the region as a rare example of rapid

capitalist development achieved by a culturally and geopolitically similar country with a similar

history of colonization. Interest in South Korea was strengthened by the advertizing effect of the

28 Castles and Miller, 1998 references in Parrenas, 52.29 Lindio-McGovern, 15-16.


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Asian Games and the Olympics held in Korea in 1986 and 1988. Moreover, South Korea had

established diplomatic relations with communist countries such as Vietnam and China,

facilitating travel from them.30 More generally, at around this time South Korean capital began to

invest in and move production (-)to Asian

countries where cheap labor could be found in an effort to compete with the rapid global

expansion of transnational capital based in developed countries. This investment formed material

and cultural linkages that enabled migration.

In addition to investing overseas, South Korean conglomerates also turned to outsourcing and

subcontracting within South Korea as a means to reduce production costs. Small and medium

size firms unable to expand overseas were incorporated into this system of production as

subcontracts. As such, they faced downward pressure on wages and conditions. At the same

time, the workers struggle of 1987 increased the strength of organized labor and gave it the

ability to demand relatively better conditions and wage increases. With many Korean workers

expecting more than could be offered from small and medium-size companies, these firms turned

to migrant labor to fill growing labor shortages. Migrant workers were thus incorporated at the

lowest level of Koreas structure of accumulation.31 By 1993 some 25% of the workforce in

factories that employed fewer than 30 workers was migrant.32 In the 1990s as South Korean the

system of flexible production became firmly entrenched in the South Korean economy, Korea

became a net receiving, rather than net sending country for migrant labor. Recognizing migrantworkers increased presence and indispensability to the South Korean economy, the government

began regulating migrant labor at roughly the same time.33

d. Migrant Labor, Irregular Work and Racism

Easily paid lower wages and forced to work long hours, fire-able at will without social

backlash, migrant workers worked as irregular labor at a time when the concept was not yet in

wide use. Since the 1997 IMF crisis, however, greater and greater numbers of Korean workers

have been irregularized such that irregular worker is now a common household term. The

30 KBJ, 10-11.31 Migrant workers have also been incorporated at the lower levels of industries that cannot be moved overseas: fishing,farming, construction and the services that develop to support industrial production.32Katharine Moon, Strangers in the Midst of Globalization: Migrant Workers and Korean Nationalism, in KoreasGlobalization, Sam Kim, ed. (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press),148.33 KJB, 17.


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intensification of flexible labor relations has come with an intensification of divisions among

workers (irregular vs. regular workers, workers in large-scale corporations vs. small-scale firms,

native workers/foreign workers, dongpo vs non-dongpo migrant workers, etc.) the result of

capitals structuring of difference for the purpose of profit. Racism works to reproduce and

naturalize these divisions, as well as to spread them from the workplace to other areas of society.

Phases of South Korean Capital Accumulation and Migrant Labor

Phase 1 (1945~1987) Phase 2 (1987~1997) Phase 3 (1997~ )

Form of Accumulation *Compressed capitalaccumulation45~62: foreign aid andsavings63~87: state-leddevelopment

*Dependent monopolycapital accumulation

*Neoliberal flexiblecapital accumulation

Trade relations U.S.-Japan-Korea Diversification of traderelations with Asiancountries

Further diversification

Place in division of labor Periphery Semi-periphery Semi-periphery

Labor relations *Barrack-style()labor relations: coerciveand violently oppressive

*Antagonistic laborrelations: labor winsrelative freedom ofactivity, rights/Formationof migrant labor market

*Flexible labor relations:Increased competitionbased on divisions inworking class.

Direction of migration More out than in migration Equalization of out and inmigration/After 1992 inmigration exceeds outmigration.

In migration greatlyexceeds out migration.

Legislation related tomigration

- Before 1991: Lack ofregulation1991: Trainee system

2004: Employment PermitSystem and Traineesystem2005: EPS alone

Formation of migrantworkers

Out-migrationFormation of Korean

American communities

Unregulated/unnoticedentry

Formation of migrantworkers as social class inKorean society

Source: Adapted from Kim Byeong Jo, Stages of South Korean Capital Accumulation and Labor Migration, 15-16.

The close connection between flexible production, migrant labor and racism is not unique to

South Korea. In most, if not all, destination countries migrant workers are incorporated into

neoliberal regimes of production and distribution. Edna Bonacich and Jake Wilson have shown,

for instance, how deregulation of the transport industry and new technological developments in

the 1980s that made possible labor cost cutting strategies by logistics companies also led to the

increased participation of immigrants and other people of color in the transport and logistics

workforce. Jobs in trucking, ports and warehouses that were once secure, full time and included


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benefits, are now part-time, insecure, without benefits and occupied largely by Latin American

immigrant and other racialized groups.34 The same can be said for jobs in the meatpacking,

poultry and construction industries, as well as in low-end services such as janitorial and security

work.35 Female migrant workers in countries from the U.S. to Saudi Arabia to Hong Kong are

employed as domestic workers and are thus excluded from even the most basic labor law

protections. As Bonacich and Wilson point out, immigrants are prime targets for these irregular,

low paying and often hazardous jobs because the dire situation in their home countries mean they

will often take jobs that native workers refuse, because restrictive immigration and foreign labor

policies limit their access to other forms of employment36, and because their negative

racialization37 means the public is generally less outraged by the substandard conditions and lack

of rights they face.38 The point to emphasize here is that while in South Korea trade unionists

still view migrant workers by and large as minority group, worthy of assistance but separate from

the main activities of the labor movement, the fact is that that the exploitation of migrant labor is

part and parcel of the system of sub-contacting and flexible labor now widely recognized as one

of labors most fundamental enemy. Similarly, whileracism (or anti-racism) is not yet word

that slips easily off Korean trade unionists tongues, it is in fact a structure of oppression

intimately intertwined with neoliberal capitalism.

III. Faces of South Korean Racism

How do we identify racism and how do we fight against it? I said earlier that systemic racism

is created, maintained and transformed through the interaction of individual acts of

discrimination, acts which preserve or deepen inequality between racialized groups, government

policy that limit the rights of racialized groups, and racial representations. [[[

.To objectify and study this process Omi and Winant conceptualize it as a

series of historically situatedprojects defined as simultaneously [] interpretation[s],

representation[s], or explanation[s] of racial dynamics, and [] effort[s] to reorganize and

34 Find note.35 Solidarity Center, 2.36 Nandita Sharma labels migrant workers who enter destination countries through short-term rotation programs (likethe EPS) as literally unfree, akin to slave or coolie labor of past decades (24).37 Add Sharma definition of racialization.38 Note in B


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redistribute resources along particularly racial lines.39 Racial projects include all of the

elements of systemic racism that I have just mentioned. Interacting with one another, racial

projects define particular racial groups and their relationships to one another. The writing and

justification of slave codes like the one enacted in Jamestown in the late 1600s can be seen as

among the first of such racial projects, which when combined with the actual act of enslavement

and other practices that ordered whites above blacks created the racial hierarchy that defined

colonial America. As can be seen from this example, racial projects are embedded in the

processes of capital accumulation and the establishment of the hegemony the dominant groups

who benefit from it.

a. Present Day Racism

Different racial projects contribute to the reproduction of systemic racism in more or less

obvious ways. [ For instance, while representations of Asian Americans as

naturally entrepreneurial are clearly essentializing, it is not immediately obvious how they

contribute to reproducing a structure of domination until they are viewed in the context of Asian

immigration to the U.S., exclusionary state and federal laws, the refusal of American

professional organizations to recognize occupational qualifications achieved in non-Western

countries, the exploitative conditions in immigrant-owned small shops, and the role these shops

play in expanding the field of accumulation for large corporations. Close examination of thishistory, however, shows that such a statement, far from benign, serves to justify the difficult

conditions under which many Asian immigrants are forced to work as suitable to their nature.40

Similarly], [[, Different elements play different parts in the

construction and reproduction of systemic racism.]] In South Korea, exclusionist immigration

policies are generally not based on explicitly racist categories (the right to naturalization in South

Korea, for instance, is formally based on length of period of residence, amount of assets, and

knowledge of Korean language and culture41). When combined with individual prejudice, racist

representations and South Koreas system of accumulation based on multilevel subcontracting,

however, their effect is to reproduce migrants from South Asian countries as a negatively

39 Omi and Winant, 56.40 Need citation41 South Korean Nationality Act, Article 5, last amended by act no. 8892, 14 March 2009.


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racialized group with unequal access to job opportunities, social services and labor and political

rights.42

As Etienne Balibar notes, in the post-colonial, post-civil rights world, racism and specific

racist projects often do not make reference to overtly biological categories. He has used the terms

racism without races and cultural racism to refer to this tendency, which he sees reflected in

anti-immigrant sentiment and practices in France. The discourse of cultural racism acknowledges

that that the behavior of individuals and their aptitudes cannot be explained in terms of their

blood or even their genes, but are the result of their belonging to historical cultures, and often

conflates particular cultures or traditions with particular national groups 43 The distinction

between native/national and foreigner then come to stand in for biologically-defined racial

categories in the process of naturalizing inequalities in rights, wealth and opportunity. The

victims, however, continue to be racialized in more explicit ways in other social arenas.

b. Nationalism, Racism and Unfree Labor

The South Korean government does not make reference to an Asian, or South Asian or

brown race in policy debates. Rather, it defines certain individuals as foreign workers. As

foreign these individuals are prohibited from free choice of employment and the right to move

between employers. They are also prohibited from staying in the country for extended periods of

time and denied the political rights of citizens. These restrictions effectively make migrant

workers unfree labor. In this sense, President Catuiras frequent comment that we are treated

like slaves is more than a simple metaphor. While not enslaved for life, migrant workers in

South Korea are, like blacks in the American colonies, legally kept separate from those defined

as Korean (or dongpo), legally denied freedom of movement and political rights through a

system that ensures their profitablity to their employers. Yet it is simply accepted that the state

has the sovereign right to set up these barriers. The right of states to exclude or limit those who

are not nationals is, after all, central to the ideological concept of the nation-state.

[[As neoliberal globalization has accelerated migration, states have

increasingly taken on the role of border police. Yet, immigration restrictions have done little to

stop or slow migration, a fact that points to the ideological nature of immigration control. Rather

42 Kevin Gray, 101.43 Balibar, 21.


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than actually stopping people from entering, border control serve to underscore the right of the

state to fully or partially exclude those who are foreign, thus facilitating the governments

regulation of them once they are in the country for the purpose of profit-making. Crackdowns on

undocumented migrants have a similar ideological function. While crackdowns in South Korea

have clearly not prevented future undocumented migration and have had only limited success in

reducing the number of undocumented migrants at present, they serve as a statement of the

states right to control those who are foreign, both those with and without residence permits.]]

The people who are those made unfree in this way are racialized in much more explicit ways

in everyday life. Through interview-based research, Ham Han-hoe has found that Korean

employers racial thinking differs little from that in the United States, which associates dark skin

with inferiority and menial labor. He also quotes employers who claimed that South Asian

workers were naturally physically weak and so, .

.44 These sorts of negative associations extend beyond the workplace, as

the well-known incident two summers ago in which an Indian professor was slandered as dark

and smelly by a Korean man while riding the bus demonstrates.

There is one important exception to lack of explicitly racial terms in policy discourse.

This is the use of the term dongpo, which differentiates overseas Koreans from other migrants

through reference to biological and national sameness.45Those designated as dongpo have

greater freedom to enter and leave South Korea, greater freedom to change workplaces and wider

choice of industries to work in. Right now, undocumented dongpos are the beneficiaries of a

broad-based legalization program, supposedly based on humanitarian considerations. At the

same time, dongpos from less developed countries are not given the same rights as those from

Japan and the U.S., demonstrating the flexible and utilitarian application of this term. The use of

the racial/nationalist term dongpo, and the policies based on it, serve to create a hierarchy of

rights and social status in which Koreans (and overseas Koreans from Japan and the U.S.) are at

the top, overseas Koreans from less developed countries are in the middle and non-dongpo

migrants are at the bottom.46

44 Han, 210.45For an explication of the origins of the term dongpo see 356


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c. Two forms of Racism

Whether as foreigner or as Asian, there are two dominant racist representations of migrant

workers, currently in circulation in South Korean society, that of the migrant as criminal and that

of the migrant as the object of Korean pity and aid. Far from mere stereotypes, these

representations are close tied to the way in which migrants are treated by government policy and

public institutions. These also enter into the way common Koreans approach and interact with

migrant workers.

1. Criminalization

In the last few years, the government and media have given increasing attention to foreign

crime.47 This attention comes despite the fact that there is no statistical evidence that foreigners

are more responsible for crime than Koreans.48 Actions taken against foreign crime, and the

statements associated with them, often implicitly or explicitly blur the distinction between

undocumented residence (an administrative offense) and criminal behavior. They also suggest a

general correlation between foreignness and potential criminality.

A report entitled Plan for Improving Policy on the Unspecialized Foreign Labor Force,

released by the South Korean Committee on Strengthening National Competitiveness

(Gukgagyeongjaengryeok ganghwa wiwonhoe)on 25 September 2008 provides an example ofthis trend. This document lists the increase of areas of illegal foreign resident concentration

and the occurrence of all forms of crime on the same line, under the section title problems [of

illegal migration]: crime and damage to national image.49It also lists as a problem, the

47 See for example, Lee Se-hyong, Oegugin beomjoe choeda ansandanwon-guro [High Levels of Foreigner Crime Ansandanwon-Guro, Donga Ilbo, 27 Octoer 2008, http://www.donga.com/fbin/output?n=200810270146;Lee Han-

seun, Jo Gwang-deok oegugin byeomjoe 4nyeongan 59% jeungga, [Jo Gwang-deokForeigner crimes haveincreased 49% in the last 4 years,Yonhap News, 9 October 2009,http://www.etimes.net/service/CreditBank_2008/shellview.asp?ArticleID=2009100916364802303;Park Si-soo, Foreigns Crimes Rise Significantly, The Korea Times, 3 March 2010,http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2010/03/117_61796.html.48The National Polices own 2009 white paper records 4.1 crimes for every 100 Koreans and 3.9 for every 100foreigners.49 Gukgagyeongjaengryeok ganghwa wiwonhoe [Committee on Strengthening National Competitiveness], Bijeonmunoeguginryeog jeongcheag gaeseonbangan [Joint Team for the Investigation of Organized Foreign Crime], 25 September2008, 19
http://www.donga.com/fbin/output?n=200810270146http://www.etimes.net/service/CreditBank_2008/shellview.asp?ArticleID=2009100916364802303http://www.etimes.net/service/CreditBank_2008/shellview.asp?ArticleID=2009100916364802303http://www.donga.com/fbin/output?n=200810270146


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formation of a union by illegal residents [MTU], [leading to] the tendency towards neglect of the

law.50

Since the National Competitiveness Committee report was released, the Prosecutors

Office, Police and Immigration Service have made several efforts to crackdown on foreign

crime.51 Statements by the government explaining these measures comes close to making

criminality a characteristic of foreignness. A press release explaining one crackdown effort

claimed it was being made out of joint awareness [of the need for a response] to organized and

serious foreigner crime, which threatens public order and is associated with the increase in

foreigners residing in South Korea 52 That particular crackdown led to the arrest of 1,354

individuals, including 209 accused of using counterfeit immigration documents, over a five-

month period.53 During another foreign crime crackdown carried out directly before the G20

Summit, illegal residents were explicitly listed among the criminals targeted by stop and

search procedures.54 The measures describe here both represent and treat Asian migrants as, by

nature, potential criminals, and undocumented migrants as criminal in fact, a pattern which is

then reflected in mainstream media coverage. Associations of migrant workers with criminality

legitimize and are reinforced by border control, immigration raids and tighter regulation of

documented migrant workers in the country.

Like measures against and representations of foreign crime, the crackdown against

undocumented migrants and targeted crackdown against migrant activists also contribute to the

creation and reproduction of systemic racism. This is despite the fact that officially, immigration

crackdowns target individuals based, not on racial categories, but on visa status. Articles 46

through 50 of the Immigration Control Act give immigration officials the right to investigate any

individual suspected of being in violation of the law, including the right to demanding

presentation of documentation of residence status.55 These provisions open the way towards

50 Gukgagyeongjaengryeok ganghwa wiwonhoe, 19.51 Geomchal [Prosecutors Office],Oegugin jojikbeomjoe habdongsusabonbu seolchi [Establishment ofJoint Team forthe Investigation of Organized Foreign Crime], press release, 27 October 2009, 1.52Geomchal [Prosecutors Office], Oegugin jojikbeomjoe habdonsusabonbu hwaldong gyeolgwa [Activity Report ofthe Joint Team for the Investigation of Organized Foreign Crime], press release, 8 April 2010, 1; Geomchal, Oeguginjojikbeomjoe habdongsusabonbu seolchi, 153Geomchal, Oegugin jojikbeomjoe habdonsusabonbu hwaldong gyeolgwa, 154Seouljibang gyeongchalcheong [Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency], Oegugin gangryeong beomjoe seonjejeogdaeeung eur wihan oegugin miljip jiyeog teukbyeol dansog chujin [Special Crackdown on Areas of ForeignerConcentration to Preemptively Respond to Severe Foreigner Crimes], press release, 3 May 2010, 2.55 See, South Korean Immigration Control Act, Articles 46-50, last amended by act no. 9142, 19 December 2008.


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racial profiling, and there are numerous instances of documented Asian migrants being stopped

on the street or mistakenly picked up in raids. As suggested earlier, crackdowns function to

expand and solidifying the inequalities in privilege and power between non-white migrants and

native Koreans by creating an atmosphere of terror that keeps migrants from carrying out

everyday activities, not to mention deters them from complaining about workplace conditions

and collective organizing. This is true not only for undocumented migrants, but for all those who

work under similar conditions, as they are in constant danger of becoming undocumented due to

the temporary and precarious nature of their visas, and because they may be picked up even

while they have valid residence status.56

Targeted crackdown against migrant activists, as well, reproduces inequalities between

native Koreans as migrants. It does this by wiping out the leadership of migrant organizations,

and thus diminishing migrants capacity for collective action, the primary means through which

oppressed groups (workers, racialized minorities, etc.) can offset material inequality and lack of

representation. By eroding this equalizing force, targeted crackdown serves to keep migrant

workers in their place in the racial and class hierarchy. This is why empowerment of migrant

workers as a collective political force (,) is so important in an anti-racist struggle.

2. The Multicultural Benefactor-Beneficent Relationship

The other dominant representation of Asian migrant workers, which can be found

everywhere from tv commercials to movies to government multicultural programs, is that of a

poor creature from an underdeveloped country. This image is most strongly associated with

migrant wives of Korean husbands, although it is often applied to (feminized) male migrant

workers as well. Whether a pitiable woman or a feminized man, migrants represented in this way

are also made into the receivers of Korean benevolence and assistance. Take for instance a recent

Yonhap News article, which documents a field trip organized by the Busan police to the Gijeon-

gun police station. Clearly picking up on the polices own explanation of the event, the article

states:

16 187,

.

56 Restrictions on the reasons for which and number of times one can change workplaces and the short five-yearresidence period stipulated by the EPS mean that EPS workers can easily become undocumented by leaving aworkplaces without getting the proper permission or after all changes to change workplaces are used up, or by staying inKorea after the five-year residence period is over.


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.

.,

,, 112,

.

(23) "

"

"

".57

Here, the troubles of South Asian migrant women in South Korea are represented as

having nothing to do with discrimination or poverty they may experience in here. Rather their

difficulties arise from their uniform timidity, and their misperceptions of Korean institutions,

which are based on experience with corrupt government institutions in their home countries. The

police (presumably male), help to alleviate these misperceptions through education, interest and

compassion (). There is, of course, no mention in this article (nor did it likely ever

occur to the sponsoring police) that the treatment of South Asian migrants as criminal by the

very same police in other contexts, might be one of the reasons for these womens hesitance to

step foot in police station doors.

The benevolent Korean-pitiable migrant relationship is found all over Korean society

these days. Think of government support for multicultural families, of the heroic/comic Korean

(disguised as a Bhutanese) in Banga Banga, of the centers who provide services for migrant

workers even of the rhetoric used by some labor activists. (I can remember the KCTU director

who is now in charge of migrant issues, once explaining the importance of KCTUs attention to

migrant workers, by saying that having consideration forthe problems of the most lowly

workers was the proper spirit for unionists to take.) I need more time to think about the full

implications of this relationship of Korean, which seems to permeate all areas of society. One

thing is clear, however. This relationship is less about whom migrant workers really are, than is

an attempt to redefine what it means to be Korean. It is a representation and a performance of the

Korean nation and the Korean people as humane and more advancednot the exploiters of

workers systematically made unfree, but the caretakers of less fortunate foreigners.

57 http://www.kookje.co.kr/news2006/asp/center.asp?gbn=v&code=0300&key=20110408.99002163739.


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In the end, both acts that criminalization of migrant workers and acts of pity serve the

goal of remaking South Korea as an advanced nation, although in very different ways. The

former help to make migrant workers into cheap, exploitable and controllable labor, thus

securing profits and improving national competitiveness. The latter hide this exploitation from

public view and from individual consciousness. They are a means to demonstrate to ourselves

and to others that we are a nation in possession of the resources and sophistication that it takes to

be an advanced, tolerant, multicultural society. We might say, therefore that criminalization of

migrant workers and acts of multicultural benevolence are opposite sides ofthe same coin.

IV. Conclusions

So, what are the implications of the analysis I have laid out here? In other words, what

does an understanding of migration and migrant labor as integral to neoliberalism and flexible

production say about the direction the migrant workers movement should take? What does an

understanding of racism as a system that supports and is supported by, but not reduced to

capitalism mean about the work we should be doing?

a. An Internationalist Perspective and a Global Struggle

1. Recognize that the forces that lead to migration and migrant worker exploitation are global:

They include neoliberal polices that exacerbate poverty, un and underemployment, and

inequalities between countries and forms of foreign investment that seek to exploit cheap third

world .labor in a process of accumulation that benefits transnational capital. Struggles against

these causes of migration require international solidarity between workers in less developed

(labor sending) countries and developed (labor receiving) countries based on a clear

understanding of the role each play in the current global system of production and distribution

and how they are connected by it. Building this understanding and real links between workers is

a necessity for the future strength of the migrant workers movement as the labor movement as a

whole.

Research: Specific forces of displacement (e.g. structural adjustment) and material and

cultural linkages (foreign direct investment) the bring migrant workers from specific countries of

origin to South Korea; Role of (Korean) companies in migrant countries of origin, impact on

labor economy, labor conditions, etc.


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Action: Solidarity and joint action by workers in different countries who share the same

transnational employers (e.g. joint action by migrant security workers in the U.S. and Europe

employed by the same transnational contractor (SEIU); joint action by workers employed by

Hanjin in Busan and the Subic Freeport Zone in the Philippines?).

2. Find forms of organizing that are not bound by national borders: Many unions have started to

recognize the need for organizing methods and forms of union membership that follow migrant

workers where they go, rather than losing touch with them when they return to home countries or

move on to new destination countries. Some efforts made in this area include: 1) Production and

distribution of resources explaining labor conditions and introducing unions in common

destination countries by Global Union Federations. The UNI () passport is the

best example of this type of resource. Workers who carry this passport not only have access to a

basic information about unions and rights but are also given a welcome given a welcome from a

local affiliated trade union in a new country where they have arrived to work, helped in

becoming familiar with the new local community, included on mailing lists for information and

invitations to cultural and political events, given access to training courses, counseling and legal

support with workplace problems. 2) MOUs between unions in countries of origin and countries

of destination that include agreements on collective work to protect migrant workers rights, pre-

departure and post-arrival labor rights/union education, etc. (GEFONT-MTUC, GEFONT-

KCTU). 3) Nationality based networks of migrant workers around the world (Migrante

International). 4) The International Migrant Workers Solidarity Network (IMWSN), a network

established between MTU and former MTU officers who had returned to their home countries in

2007. One of the main goals of this network is to conduct pre-departure education for migrants

coming to South Korea, but it has until now faced several difficulties and is not very active.

Research: Research on the various methods of organizing across borders, assessment of

strengths and limitations and why this type of organizing has not developed further.

Action: Efforts to strengthen forms of cross border organizing including cross border

union membership based on the above assessment. For KCTU, this starts with better

implementation of the GEFONT-KCTU MOU and active efforts to conclude MOUs with unions

in other countries of origin.


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3. A Framework for demands to be adopted collectively in countries of origin and countries of

destination that recognize the global nature of the problem of migration: Right to abode, Right to

migration: The right to abode means having access to the basic things that one needs to live

safely and healthily in a local community of origin or choice including: access to decent

employment, access to basic social services, means to participate in the decision making of that

community (political rights). The right to migrate includes lack of restriction at the borders of

home countries, adequate legal and safe pathways for migration to destination countries and

chances as permanent residence and basic political rights in destination countries.

Research: There is literature explicating the meaning of this framework than needs to be

summarized and introduced.58 In addition, many destination countries do offer pathways to

permanent residence and political rights to some extent. Labor and migrant rights movements in

other countries have their own proposals for immigration policy reform, which include the

conferral of some of these rights (AFL-CIO/Change to Win 2009 immigration reform

proposal).59 Systems in use and under proposal should be studied and evaluated.

Action: Based on this research, a realistic proposal for reform of South Koreas

immigration and naturalization system and a plan for winning public support for it needs to be

formulated.

B.An Anti-racist Perspective and Anti-Racist Struggle

1. The South Korean labor movement must recognize that exploitation of migrant workers is at

the heart of flexible production and flexible labor regimes. It must also recognize that racism as a

system supports and is supported by these systems and the hegemony of the class that benefits

from them. Korean unions must embrace migrant worker organizing and anti-racist struggle as

fundamental to their future survival.

2. Recognize that while racism is fundamentally interrelated with capitalism it is not the same

thing. Like patriarchy it will not simply die away when(if?) capitalism is dismantled (Troskyist

argument). Similarly, racism is more than simple prejudice that can be overcome by

understanding and tolerance. We have to fight racism on various fronts including: in

58 For example: Pecoud and De Guchteneire,Migration without Borders: Essays on the Free Movement of People(2007).59 http://www.aflcio.org/issues/civilrights/immigration/upload/immigrationreform041409.pdf


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interpersonal interactions, at work, in schools, in the media, in government policy.

On the level of policy, struggle for comprehensive immigration reform that targets not

only the crackdown but the segregation of migrant workers as foreigners is essential. So are

demands that breakdown the racial hierarchy between dongpo and non-dongpo migrants rather

than ones that perpetuate it (move from demands for full application of the Law on Overseas

Koreans to demands for long-term residence rights for all.) (This work overlaps significantly

with #3 above.)

I have mentioned schools here as an opportunity to stress that racial categories and racism

do not end with migrant workers but also affect their children. This is particularly true of the

children of undocumented migrants, since their status is passed on, but also applies to the

children with citizenship and one Korean parent. The effects of racism include poor school

performance, high drop-out rates and inability to attend school all together. Racialized youth are

already gaining attention in the media, but it is the wrong type of attention, which portrays them

as victims and the objects of multicultural benevolence. This youth need to empowered as actors

in their lives and their communities. What is more, they have great potential as future activists,

given language skills and familiarity with migrant communities. They are therefore an important

target of anti-racist organizing. There are models of youth organizing that connect youth

programs to local struggles that could be studied.

In the area of media representation and socially misperceptions, we need to conduct and

develop education programs that expose not only the fallacy of racial stereotypes but also the

function they serve in naturalizing racial hierarchies and inequalities. An astute critique of

multiculturalism is part of this effort.

In our interpersonal interactions we have to recognize that our actions are not isolated

from the racist society in which they take place. In a racial hierarchy where we have power, our

actions that maintain this power (greater access to information, greater decision-making power,

greater control over money and resources, etc.) are implicated as elements of systemic racism.

We need to pay special attention they way our actions, our habits of speech, our work styles,

perpetuate or disturb racial hierarchies. Where they perpetuate racial hierarchies, we are

responsible for actively changing them.

3. The most important element of anti-racist struggle is empowering the communities at the

bottom of the racial hierarchy as social and political actors. A migrants rights movement that


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makes demands, but takes the attitude that we cannot wait for migrant activists to catch up with

us and must simply push on with our activities does nothing to upset racial hierarchies. It is,

therefore, not an anti-racist movement. The most important element of anti-racist struggle is

empowering the communities at the bottom of the racial hierarchy as social and political actors.

This means organizing, not simply the type that increases membership, but the type that creates

leaders. We need to develop effective strategies and structures for organizing and empowerment.

To do this will require: 1) For MTU, defining winnable objectives and building campaigns

around them, implementing structures for language learning and skills trainings, drastically

improving dialogue in all areas. As one example of what such a campaign might look like, I have

written in the past about the possibility of developing a struggle aimed at getting job centers

simply to follow their own internal guidelines about translation and investigation and processing

of workplace transfer applications as a way of organizing documented migrant workers. The

same article includes discussion of migrant organizing strategies used by organizations in other

countries that do not have collective bargaining rights. A deeper investigation of these strategies

and attempt to adapt them to the Korean context is both possible and necessary.60

2) For other KCTU unions, commitment of trained organizers to migrant worker organizing and

the implementation of strategies being used in other sectors (), in campaigns

aimed at migrant workers.

All of these ideas and strategies need to be fleshed out and concretized. One thing that is clear,

however, is that if the South Korean labor movement is going to seriously take on an anti-racist,

internationalist perspective towards migrant worker organizing it will have to dedicate resources

not only in (as is done now), but also in the policy and international solidarity

departments. In addition, if KCTU does not adopt an anti-racist, internationalist perspective and

dedicate the necessary resources, it will not be able to affectively organize migrant workers. And,

if KCTU does not succeed in organize migrant workers we will see a progressive weakening of

the labor movement in the years to come.

60 See,, - 2011, (2011 1-2

).


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