One out of three workers leave labor union after police began crackdown on gangsters in construction industry

A total of 598 people died in accidents subject to accident investigation last year, the second year of the Fatal Accident Punishment Act, according to the supplementary statistics on industrial accidents in 2023 (provisional) released by the Ministry of Labor and Employment on March 7. In this photo, workers work at a housing redevelopment site in Seoul. By Cho Tae-hyung

Kang Chul-won, who worked as a rebar team leader for four years as a member of a labor union, left it in August last year. His role was to go around construction sites and find work for his teammates. However, from the beginning of last year, he began hearing from contractors that “union members are difficult to hire.” This was at a time when the government was heavily promoting a special crackdown on illegal activities at construction sites.

From May last year, he could not find work, and so did 13 other members of his team. Kang went to a warden who he knew, but he demanded Kang a certificate of withdrawal from the union.

There was no other option. He was worried about how to make a living. Other union members discouraged him, saying, "Let's hang in there a little longer," but Kang was determined. Kang spoke to a reporter on April 30, a day before Labor Day, and said, "I entered the union to live like a human being, but now I am struggling to make ends meet and facing a situation where ‘life’ is not guaranteed,” Kang told a reporter on April 30, a day before Labor Day. Kang now works as a day laborer, traveling around Sejong, Pyeongtaek, and Dongtan.

It's not just Kang's story. Over the past year, one out of every three construction union members has left the union. The main reason is that the atmosphere of reluctance to hire union members has spread.

According to the breakdown of union dues paid by construction unions obtained by Kyunghyang Shinmun, the number of union dues payers fell from 70,900 in March last year to 49,882 in March this year, a decrease of about 30 percent in a year. The decline was especially large in the Seoul metropolitan area. The number of union members at the Northern Regional Headquarters in the Seoul Metropolitan Area halved from 10,348 in March last year to 4,866 in March. The number of union members at the Southern Regional Headquarters also dropped from 13,698 to 7,491 over the same period.

A construction workers\' resolution meeting to carry on the spirit of the Yang hoe-dong columnists is held in front of the Seodaemun-gu Police Station on Labor Day, the one-year anniversary of their deaths. By Kim Chang-gil

“Since 2017, the number of union members has steadily increased every year, but the decline like last year is unprecedented," said Kim Jun-tae, director of the education propaganda department at the Korean Construction Workers' Union (KCWU). He added, "The construction industry is deteriorating and the government's stance on labor union repression seems to be the decisive factor."

There is a crisis in the management of labor unions. The Gyeongin branch of KCWU reduced union activity costs by 20 percent. It also suspended its execution of the union welfare fund. The construction union reduced union activity costs by 20%. The union welfare fund has also suspended its execution. Even some branches are looking for new offices or undergoing a restructuring program to reduce office operating costs. Eo Kwang-deuk, secretary-general of the Gyeongin branch of KCWU, said, “After all, labor unions have to make a living. We could not say, ’We‘ll take care of you,’ when you could be fired from a construction site because you are a union member."

The way laborers work has also changed. It used to be that teams would negotiate with their employers and work until the end of a process. However, these days, team-level work is being dismantled and subcontracting is increasing. Subcontracting is mainly based on volume. Workers have to meet a set quota per day. “In the past, there were 25 rebar teams and 70 dismantling teams in the Gyeongin branch, but now none of them work in teams,” said Eo.

Park Sung-won, who has worked as a team leader for eight years, also disbanded his team late last year. Some of the 20 team members left the union, but Park stayed. Park was also offered several times to “sign a contract,” but he refused. "Since an employer has rights to decide the unit price for subcontracting, workers have no choice but to follow their orders," Park said. "The employment status is also unstable because it is not a fixed-term job.”

Critics point out that such a change will dampen the unions’ on-site monitoring role. Usually, the union delivered the requirements through a workers’ representative when a labor-management consultative body was created after being directly employed at the site. However, since subcontracting is not based on direct employment, it is difficult for the unions to refuse unreasonable demands from construction companies, such as shortening a construction period. “The easiest way for a construction company to make profits is to shorten a construction period,” said Ham Kyung-sik, head of the Korea Institute of Construction Safety. “At the union level, we can negotiate the period with expertise, but it is difficult in the case of subcontracting.” He added, “Because they are paid according to volume, they often work too much. Even if workers raise a problem, there is no specific contract period, so there will be no other work if construction companies say, ‘Stop coming out to work.’”

The Incheon Gyumdan apartment complex, which was controversial last year for missing rebar, was also blamed for excessive shortening of the construction period.

”Construction sites with cracks in the walls or water leaks are mostly the result of emphasizing ‘being quickly‘ without following the concrete curing period,” said Jeon Jae-hee, head of the labor safety and health department at KCWU. Ham said, "Labor unions can act as a watchdog thanks to its accumulated know-how, but unskilled workers who are hired in at a low unit price are inevitably difficult to monitor well."

A construction union protests against Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Won Hee-ryong with a picket as he leaves after attending a testimony session on illegal unfair practices of construction site unions at the Professional Construction Hall in Dongjak-gu, Seoul, on March 8, last year. Yonhap News Agency

A crackdown on gangsters in the construction industry is behind the sharp drop in the number of union members. The police launched a major crackdown last year with the special promotion for 50 officers as rewards to root out illegal behavior at construction sites. In about eight months, starting in December 2022, the police investigated 4,829 people and sent them to prosecutors, and detained 148 of them. The police said they would also crack down on illegal activities by the management, but the number of arrests was zero. Critics criticized that reckless investigations were conducted in line with the government's stance of suppressing labor unions.

Moon Seung-jin, an official in a labor union, was raided twice in January and March last year. He was charged with extortion for receiving full-time union member fees. He presented a wage agreement document stating the payment of full-time union member fees, but to no avail. “Detectives had no understanding of labor activities or labor laws,” Moon said, adding” If you held a union meeting, they would say, ’You gathered to collude.’” Moon was eventually cleared of charges, but some of his coworkers are still under investigation. “It‘s not easy to tell coworkers to join the union when you see them suffering,” he said.

Lee Woo-gap, who has worked as a tower crane operator for 27 years, was also investigated by police in February last year on suspicion of bribery. The monthly fee, which he has been conventionally received, became a problem. The police believed that Lee had blackmailed a construction company and received the fee. He submitted a recording that the amount of fee was first proposed by the site manager as evidence, but it did not change anything. The police sent Lee to the prosecutor's office on suspicion of extortion. After a supplementary investigation by prosecutors, he was cleared of the charge last December. “I felt choked up with something when I came out of the police station, which I had never been to in my life, after a three-and-a-half-hour investigation,” Lee said, adding that he was unable to work during the investigation. "I thought several times about whether I had to kill myself to relieve my resentment."

This year, the police have started the second crackdown on gangsters in the construction industry. They began a six-month special crackdown on construction sites from April 29. "As in the case of the cargo alliance in the past, the supporters responded to the union bashing, so they are proceeding with it for a political purpose,” Moon said.

※This article has undergone review by a professional translator after being translated by an AI translation tool.