A Tale of Migrant Workers:organizing ourselves

A Tale of Migrant Workers:
Organizing Ourselves


By Masum, MTU Former General Secretary,
(Presented at the International Assembly of Migrant Workers, Manila, October 2008)

Organizing migrant workers is a very personal subject for me. This is because it I came to organizing and union activism very organically as a result of my own hardships as a migrant worker in South Korea. Therefore, my presentation today will be a personal one, based on my life experiences.

On May 30, 1996 I arrived in South Korea from Bangladesh with a lot of dreams. When I arrived at Kimpo Airport, I was alone, but suddenly I found myself in a room inside the airport with hundreds of foreigners. Immigration officers had confiscated our passports and tickets. Of the people there, only 12 people were granted visas; the rest were deported. I was one of the lucky ones who got a visa.

After 2 months, my thoughts began to change a lot. I thought, “I am not lucky at all. I am actually very unlucky.” This was because at my workplace I had become a mute person who could not speak or understand. Several times I was physically abused by my supervisor because I didn’t know how to speak Korean.


It was through my personal experience that I began to first assist and then to organize migrant workers. After 1 year, the IMF financial crisis struck South Korea. I could not get my salary for 7 months. After this, I changed workplaces. One day during November 1998, one of my collegues name Luis, who was from Peru, cut his hand while cleaning a machine. Our employer refused to offer him financial support or compensation. We, the migrant workers, raised money for his treatment and I, myself, stayed with him in the hospital for one and a half months because he could not speak English or Korean very well. While I raised money for Luis’ hospital bill, I came to know of several similar cases in the area where I worked in Uijeongbu. None of us new were to go to get help. At that time I did not know about the religious groups who help migrant workers.

In 1999 I came to know one Bangladeshi who cut his finger while working. He was being financially supported by an organization called Joint Committee for Migrant Workers in Korea. Because I wanted to find a better way to support people around me I tried to contact and work with this organization, but it was in Seoul and there was nothing in my area. When I needed them they were not available. So, instead I began to build a community organization of Bangladeshi workers so that would help each other. If someone was jobless we would try to help him find a job. If someone didn’t get paid we would talk to their employer. If someone was sick we would try to help him.

In 1999-2000 there were several suicides among migrant workers. These were tragic responses to the conditions at factories and the crackdown against undocumented migrant workers. The embassy did not help to get the dead men’s salary or provide financial support so we collected money to send the bodies back.

In 2000 I also became ill. On June 26 I had an operation for an ulcer. I had to pay the full amount. I didn’t get any support from insurance as a migrant worker. After the operation I had to rest for a couple of months. This was a crucial time for me to think about how to encourage migrant workers to fight for their rights. I traveled around Seoul and Gyeonggi Province and heard that some migrants were trying to build a labor union. They were doing this through the Solidarity Network for Migrants Rights and Freedom, a coalition of 4 migrant workers and some Korean activities, however I was unable to contact them.

It was in 2002 that I finally joined up with the unionizing migrant workers. In 2002 before the Korea-Japan World Cup, the Korean government had announced that migrants who voluntarily went back to their country would get visas until after the World Cup. I went to immigration office to apply for a visa but when I went there I saw some people gathered outside and shouting. I went over and at last met the people who I had been searching for for 1 ½ years. I came to know they had established a migrant workers’ branch in a trade union called the Equality Trade Union. I became a member.

In ETUMB we put together a program for consciousness raising among migrant workers making them aware of the role migrant workers were playing in the South Korean economy and how they were helping the country to get over the economic crisis. We also educated people about the government’s response- forced deportation or self deportation through the temporary visa program. I went back to my area of Uijeongbu and organized people as ETUMB members in the same way I had done in the past. I found however, that unionizing was much more difficult than organizing in the form of a Bangladeshi community organization as I had done in the past. This is because people who work abroad often think they willl just earn a lot of money and then go home and have an easier life. So, they think, why be involved in struggle or fighting against some other country’s government? In addition some NGOs were offering education, health services and legal support for migrant workers and many people felt they could just receive these tings from Koreans instead of fighting for them themselves. Sometimes my friends would criticize me saying, “Why are you doing this? Just work, earn money and go back.” At this time I came to feel how very hard my task was.

Some of us like myself came to South Korea through a broker on a 3-month tourist visa but others came through the Industrial Trainee System. Under this system there was a rule that you could not renew your visa unless your employer did it for you each year. And you were not allowed to leave your workplace. So people were very afraid if they joined the union their employers would not renew their visas. It was a lot easier to go to the NGOs for help. In addition, we, the organizers were migrants with the support of some Korean volunteers. So many people thought that ETUMB was not strong and could not fight or provide protections like NGOs.

We had to reach out to people from many different countries so we tried to translate our demands into many language and started passing them out to workers. And we carried out struggles to protect jobs, get back-wages so as to win the trust of workers at the local level. The best example of these struggles were in Seongsu Industrial Complex and Maseok Furniture Complex. These were a new sort of struggle and form of organizing. We raised our voices against physical abuse and asked for severance pay, increase in wages and also coverage for food and housing.

The people who had ignored us or been afraid in 2002 began to come out in 2003. There had been a lot of criticism of the Trainee System so the government was moving to implement the EPS system. ETUMB protested the EPS because it really did not change the trainee system. All of a sudden the government give its last warning to the migrants who did not return to their countries would face a crackdown starting in November of that year.
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On 2003 Nov. 14th nearly 300 migrant workers and Korean activists began a sit-in protest at Myeongdong Cathedral in Seoul. Of these over 200 were migrant workers and the rest were Korean union activists. At that time it was not just ETUMB, but also Nepal Community Council, Kasammako, Indonesian Labor Committee, some Burmese organizations like Burma Action and also some individuals from Pakistan, Usbeckistan, Nigeria Ghana, Algeria. But after just one day there was a split in the delegation. This was because of many differences in ideology and opinion among the Korean activists and the fact that they were not paying attention to the needs of the migrant workers. In the end ETUMB, part of NCC, Kasammako and the Indonesian Labor Committee stayed at Myeongdong Cathedral and the rest went to another place and started a separate sit-in protest.

After that I started to think a lot and actually became more resolved. I started to think a lot about how we could bring more migrant workers into the union. We carried out the sit-in protest for over a year – 381 days. And we started organizing supporters in all areas, people who supported our demands: Stop crackdown, Abolish ITS and EPS and respect migrant workers’ rights. Due to the crackdown a lot of people could not move around freely outside but they supported our demands in their hearts.

Within our sit-in struggle we made different teams such as education, organizing, struggle and international solidarity work. Our educational team worked hard to develop the consciousness of all migrant workers. We made flyers in ten different languages. We went to many areas in South Korea (Seoul, Gyeonggi, Inchoen and beyond) in order to organize them. This led to the establishment of a migrant workers’ branch in the Seongseo Industrial Complex Union in Daegu.

In our sit-in struggle there were some members of the Construction Workers Union who were being oppressed by the government and their employers. Their participation in our sit-in struggle made us think more about how to build the consciousness of Korean workers to support migrant workers. We talked to the Construction Workers Union about how they were poorly affected by the migrant workers and how they could overcome this and we helped them to understand that because migrant workers were getting paid less the employers would hire them instead of Korean workers and thus Korean workers would loose work. This helped us to create a bridge with the construction workers.

We also made links with irregular workers. On Oct. 26th there was a rally for irregular workers. One of the leaders of the Workers Welfare Corporation, Lee Yong-suk, committed protest suicide right in front of us. Right before he died he said “I’m ok, comrades, please lets fight for our rights.” After that migrant workers began to fight with the police and they came to know that Korean workers were also repressed. Before that we thought that only migrant workers were exploited but we realized this was not true. Through these small events we came close to Korean labor organizations.

During the 381 days of sit-in struggle we were able to make the issue of migrant workers know to South Korean society. We did a lot of outreach to reach the migrant workers from over 100 countries working in South Korea. Through these activities our union won acknowledgement and respect. At that time we realize that if we wanted to organize migrant workers we had to use many different methods- area-based, nationality-base, culture-based. In particular we learned that different language groups had to be organized by someone who spoke their language and also that we had to be very carefully of religious and political conflicts among people. Discrimination between different language, cultural and religious groups was common at our workplaces. But we realized that if this came out during our struggle it would break our organization. So we were very careful and tried hard to overcome this.

During that time we were attacked in ways we could not imaging. Samar Thapa, the head leader of our sit-in protest, was kidnapped and deported by the immigration authorities. In addition, many of our local leaders were targeted and deported. This weakened us greatly because when someone who had contacts with the people in one area was deported it meant we would loose those contacts and the whole area had to be reorganized.

We were unable to win any of our demands through out sit-in protest; however we were very successfully in raising the consciousness about migrant workers among Korean workers and citizens on a mass level. We ended our sit-in on December 8th 2004. After we end the sit-in we returned to the areas where we worked to make a little money but also to focus on organizing other migrant workers.

On April 24, 2005 we held a meeting with ETUMB members and the new people we had organized from many different countries. At that meeting we transformed ETUMB into MTU, an independent union led by migrant workers ourselves. In ETUMB we were able to become members but in MTU all elected leaders were migrant workers and the secretariat was run by migrant workers. We applied to the Labor Ministry for union status but it was rejected. However after fighting a legal battle we won recognition from the Seoul, High Court on February 1, 2007. Unfortunately the Ministry of Labor appealed to the Supreme Court where the decision is still pending.
After we made the union our first president, President Anwar, was targeted arrested and detained. Many of our local leaders were also targeted and deported. In 2007 I myself, along with our president and vice president, were also targeted arrested and eventually deported. The reason I am mentioning this is to point out the extent to which the government went to attack us and break our union. This is because we were standing up for our rights. The stronger we have become the more the government has attacked.

When we started organizing there were not many women but a few very amazing female activists from Nepal, the Philippines, Indonesia and Bangladesh. Some of these comrades were also targeted, arrested and deported. Therefore, for a while there have not been any women members of MTU. However recently we have started to focus on women worker organizing so now more and more women are joining MTU.

For a long time we have insisted that KCTU and Korean unions have to organize migrant workers. This is because in a union of only migrant workers we have not been able to expand due to the government’s attack. Currently, KCTU is starting to organize migrant workers at the level of both local general unions and industrial unions like the Metal Workers Union and the Federation of Construction Industry Unions. Although MTU is only in the Seoul-Gyeong-Incheon area KCTU is expanding to organize migrant workers in other areas in South Korea. In addition, there are some NGOs that our supporting us to organize migrant workers. MTU is participating in all of these efforts. We are not trying only to strengthen ourselves but to support various forms of organizing around the country. If we can get over racism, both between Koreans and migrant workers and among migrant workers ourselves, we can achieve our goals. We have to do this now more than ever. ##



Daring to Struggle:
MTU and Undocumented Migrant Worker Organizing in South Korea

By Wol-san Liem, International Solidarity Coordinator Seoul-Gyeonggi-Incheon Migrants Trade Union (Presented at the
Global People’s Action on Migration, Development and Human Rights Manila, October 26, 2008)


Introduction

One might not think that migrant worker unionizing would start with undocumented migrant workers. In South Korea, however, this is exactly how it has begun. In April of 2005, undocumented migrant workers, mostly from Nepal and Bangladesh formed the KCTU-affiliated Seoul-Gyeonggi-Incheon Migrants Trade Union (MTU) was formed by in April 2005 by undocumented migrant workers, mostly from Bangladesh and Nepal. MTU was founded both as a challenge to the South Korean government’s policy on foreign labor and a response to conditions internal to the South Korean migrants’ rights movement. In particular, MTU’s founders recognized the need to unite and struggle to win migrant workers’ full labor rights in the face of a government policy which denied it to them and to stop the arrest, detention and deportation of undocumented migrant workers. They were also critical of the fact that the movement for migrants’ rights was led as it was primarily by Korean NGOs and religious organizations which often played the role of speaking for migrant workers instead of supporting their independent activities. To overcome this problem, MTU’s founders sought to create an organization through which migrant workers could express their own voices and become central movement actors.

MTU is the first union in South Korea, and one of the few in the world, whose elected officers are all migrant workers. What it more, it is perhaps the only union in the world founded by undocumented migrants. As such it has been the recipient of considerable international attention and, at the same time, heavy government repression. This is what makes MTU an important case for our discussion today; in addition to providing inspiration for and have the potential to set a precedent for undocumented migrant worker struggles in other countries, MTU’s story can provide important incite into the challenges that arising in organizing undocumented migrant workers.


Background

History of Labor Migration to South Korea and South Korean Policy on Foreign Labor

Migrant workers began coming to South Korea in the late 1980s and early 1990s after South Korea became known international through the 1988 Olympics. At this time there was no system regulating foreign labor. Rather, migrants entered South Korean on tourist and other shot-term visas, and quickly began to fill the dirty, dangerous and difficult jobs in small and medium-size factories that native Korean workers shunned. As a way to regulate these highly needed foreign labor force the government implemented the Industrial Trainee System in 1994. Under this system migrants were employed not as workers, but as “trainees” and were thus excluded from labor law protection, making their labor inexpensive and easily exploitable for business owners. Given the unbearable conditions that followed under the Trainee System, including low and unpaid wages, verbal and physical abuse and confiscation of passports, many trainees left their assigned factories, leading to a rise in the number of undocumented migrant workers in South Korea.

Due to heavy social criticism the government eventual introduced the Employment Permit System (EPS) in 2004, phasing out the Trainee System by 2007. Although under the EPS migrant workers are technically protected by labor law, the system preserves the basic intent of the Trainee System by creating a highly unequal relationship between workers and employer and thus facilitating exploitation and abuse, and by excluding low-skilled migrant workers from chances at long-term residence and citizenship.

In timing with the implementation of EPS, the South Korean government carried out a program of voluntary return and partial legalization in 2003, and then began a brutal policy of detention and deportation against undocumented migrant workers the following year. Since that time detention and deportation has been the only measure the government has had for handling undocumented migrant workers, despite the fact that this policy has been largely unsuccessful in reducing their numbers and has led0 to widespread human rights abuses, most notably injury and even death in the process of immigration raids and inhumane conditions inside detention centers. In addition to attempting to stop irregular migration, the crackdown against undocumented migrants also acts as a deterrent against documented migrant workers leaving their workplaces in large numbers, thus contributing to the stabilization of the EPS. For undocumented migrant workers, the insecurity experienced due to fear of the crackdown puts them in an even more vulnerable situation with relation to their employers making them more susceptible to exploitation.


Current State of the Crackdown against Undocumented Migrant Workers

With the advent of the Lee Myeong-bak administration the crackdown on undocumented migrant workers has become even more severe. On September 25th the South Korean ‘Committee on Strengthening National Competitiveness,’ a committee initiated and overseen by the president, issued a report entitled, ‘Plan for Improving Policy on the Unspecialized Foreign Labor Force.’ This report, in addition to proposing measures for reducing the costs of businesses that employ EPS works by putting more costs onto workers, includes a plan to reduce the number of undocumented migrant workers from the current 223,229 to 200,000 by the end of 2008 and down from 19.3% to 10% of the total foreign population in South Korea in the next five years through arrest and deportation. In particular, it calls for strengthening the infrastructure necessary for a joint crackdown by the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Labor and police carried out regularly 2 times a year, the first being from October to December this year. In addition, the plan assumes the passage of bill revising the Immigration Controls Law, initiated last year by the Ministry of Justice, which will strengthen the authority of immigration officers to carry out the crackdown. This full-out attack, justified by the portrayal of undocumented migrant workers as a criminal class in government statements and the mainstream media, should be understood both as an intensification of the racist and exploitative tendencies that have characterized South Korea’s immigration policy in reaction to economic crisis and a turn towards greater overall repression of labor and other progressive forces under the new Lee Myeong-bak administration.


The Seoul-Gyeonggi-Incheon
Migrants Trade Union

History

The Seoul-Gyeonggi-Incheon Migrants Trade Union (MTU) was formed in the wake of a year-long protest against the establishment of EPS and the beginning of intense crackdown against undocumented migrant workers. From November 2003 to December 2004 migrant worker organizations including MTU’s predecessor, the Equality Trade Union Migrants Branch, and Korean labor and civil society activists, carried out a sit-in protest at the historic Myeong-dong Cathedral in downtown Seoul. The sit-in attracted wide public attention, making the plight of migrant workers and the horror of the crackdown known in the media and throughout society. It also provided a certain sanctuary for undocumented migrant workers targeted in the crackdown, a training ground for migrant worker activists, and a compressed experience in the difficulties of solidarity between migrant workers and native Koreans, in particular those that arose from the inevitable inequalities in resources, experience, language skills and social status between seasoned Korean activists and organizations and new migrant worker activists and formations. It was through this experience that migrant workers became convinced of both the necessity of a strong relationship with KCTU and Korean workers and the need for an independent organization led entirely by migrant workers themselves. When the sit-in protest ended over a year later in December of 2004, its participants committed themselves to local organizing and the construction of such an organization. As such, the Seoul-Gyeonggi-Incheon Migrants’ Trade Union, an independent union for and by migrant workers regardless of visa status and a member of the KCTU Seoul Regional Council, was born on 24 April 2005.


Repression

As a formation through which migrant workers from all countries can unite to demand their rights MTU is both unique and powerful; it is also threatening to the South Korean government, which seeks to maintain migrant workers as an easily exploitable labor force through perpetuating their alienation and low social status. As such MTU has been a target of consistent government repression. Since its founding, the government has refused to acknowledge MTU’s legal union status. It has also targeted MTU leaders for arrest and deportation in an attempt to stop the union’s activities.


Legal Battle

The ambiguity over their legal labor rights is one of the challenges in organizing undocumented migrant workers. The South Korea Ministry of Labor’s originally rejection of MTU’s legal status was made on the basis that the union’s leadership and membership are primarily undocumented migrant workers, supposedly without the same legally protected labor rights as Korean workers. This position was initially upheld in a district court decision on 7 February 2006, but then overturned by the Seoul High Court on 1 February 2007, which held that migrant workers, regardless of residence status, have the full right to freedom of association under the ROK Constitution and labor law. Nonetheless, the Ministry of Labor has appealed this decision to the Supreme Court, where a final decision is still pending, likely to be issued before the end of the year.

The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions has filed a complaint with the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association in regards to the South Korean government’s refusal of MTU’s status. Because this complaint and MTU’s Supreme Court case are of the few that deal with undocumented migrant workers’ right to freedom of association, it is worth taking a brief moment to discuss the basic issues involved.

The central argument of the South Korean ministry of labor is that undocumented migrant workers do not have the same rights protections afforded other workers under the South Korean Constitution and Trade Union Law because they are not lawfully employable under the Immigration Control Law. The problem with this argument lies in a misinterpretation of the scope of the Immigration Control Law which leads to a false assertion that status under immigration law can have the effect of reversing the rights given to all workers under the Constitution and the Trade Union Law.

Both the South Korean Constitution and the Trade Union law protect the 3 basic labor rights (right to form labor unions, right to collective bargaining and right to strike) for all workers regardless of social status, limitable only in the case of public servants and those employed in national defense. The Immigration Control Law aims at prohibiting the act of employing migrant workers without legal residence status. It does not however, pertain to undocumented migrant workers who have already entered into a labor relation with an employer in South Korea and therefore have the status of worker as defined in the Constitution and the Trade Union Law. The High Court ruling upheld the interpretation that in that freedom of association is a fundamental right protected by the Constitution, status under Immigration law cannot be seen as a basis for denying it. As such, the High Court stated clearly that foreigners with irregular residence status have the right to establish labor unions.

This interpretation also has precedent in international law that pertains to South Korea. According to the South Korean Constitution, “Treaties duly concluded and promulgated under the Constitution and generally recognized rules of international law shall have the same force and effect of law as domestic laws of the Republic of Korea” (Article 6, clause 1). Based on this stipulation, protections provided undocumented migrant workers under international agreements that South Korea has ratified, must be respected. These agreements include the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). In particular, the CERD (Committee on the Eradication of Racial Discrimination, which monitors the ICERD) stated in General Recommendation No. 30(2004) “guarantees against racial discrimination apply to non-citizens regardless of their immigration status” (paragraph 7) and that “while States parties may refuse to offer jobs to non-citizens without a work permit, all individuals are entitled to the enjoyment of labour and employment rights, including the freedom of assembly and association, once an employment relationship has been initiated until it is terminated” (paragraph 32).

In addition, ILO Convention No. 87 protects the right to freedom of association for all workers, “without distinction whatsoever” and has been shown to apply to undocumented migrant workers through Committee on Freedom of Association recommendations pertaining to the complaint submitted by the UGT in 2001 and the one submitted by the AFL-CIO and CTM in 2002. While South Korea has not ratified Convention No. 87, it is bound to uphold the rights protected in it as a member of the ILO under the Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work (1998).

It is therefore clear that there is able basis for a Supreme Court ruling in favor of MTU’s legal status. Nonetheless, the political climate in South Korea, which is become more and more hostile to migrant workers and all progressive forces makes the outcome of the case a point of consider, which requires the attention of both South Korean and international labor and human rights organizations.


Targeted Crackdown

Beyond the Ministry of Justice’s refusal to acknowledge MTU and the legal battle that has resulted, the South Korean government has also used an abuse of the right to arrest and deport undocumented migrant workers granted under the Immigration Control Law in order to directly attack the union’s leadership. As mentioned earlier, the government has used a tactic of targeted crackdown- premeditated arrest, detention and deportation- against migrant worker leaders since even before MTU w0as formed. Several officers of MTU’s precursor, the Equality Trade Union’s Migrants Branch, were targeted for arrest and detention. Directly, after MTU was founded, our first president was also arrested in the middle of the night and kept in detention for close to a year before finally being released for medical reasons.

The Immigration Authorities attacked again on November 27 last year arresting our second President, Vice President and General Secretary all at the same time in 3 separate locations in Seoul. In each case multiple immigration officers had lay in waiting hidden near their homes or workplace from as early as the night before. All three men were transported to and detained at Cheongju Foreigners’ Detention Center 2.5 hours outside of Seoul. Despite the fact that a National Human Rights Commission investigation was underway December 13th they were taken from their cells in the middle of the night, out a hole cut in the fence at the back of the detention center in order to avoid supporters keeping watch at the front gate and deported early in the morning.

At the time of their arrest and deportation the Immigration Authority and the Ministry of Justice made the absurd claim that the three men were not targeted but had simply been caught in the course of a regular immigration raid. However, as if the fact that this was a targeted crackdown was not already obvious enough, only 5 months after the previous leaders had been detained, MTU’s newly elected President Torna and Vice President Sabur were arrested, detained and deported in exactly the same matter. Immigration officers tracked the men and hid nearby the MTU office and the Vice President’s home for hours waiting to arrest the two at roughly the same time the night of May 2nd. Again the MTU leaders were detained at distant Cheongju Detention Center, unlike other undocumented migrant workers arrested in Seoul, who are detained nearby.

Given that this was undeniably a case of targeted crackdown and thus an abuse of authority granted under the immigration law MTU filed objections to the detention and deportation orders for the two men with the Ministry of Justice and a lawsuit with the Seoul District Court. MTU also made a complaint to the National Human Rights Commission as it had done when the previous leaders were arrested, this time including an application for an urgent appeal for stay of detention until the investigation was over. On 15 March the Standing Committee of the Human Rights Commission made a decision in favor of the stay of detention and issued an urgent appeal calling on the Ministry of Justice and Immigration Authority not to deport President Torna and Vice President Sabur until the investigation of their arrests was completed. Despite the fact, or perhaps because this decision was communicated verbally to concerned parties around noon on the 15th, the two were taken from their cells and transported to Incheon International Airport the same day and finally deported at around 9:30 that evening.

The targeted crackdown against MTU leaders is clearly an abuse of state authority and an act of blatant labor repression meant to break MTU before the Supreme Court decision. Nonetheless, it also demonstrates one of the challenges of organizing undocumented migrant workers; that is, because of the vulnerable legal status of undocumented migrant activists, it is extremely difficult to challenge this sort of attack against them. Indeed, the government of Lee Myeong-bak has become more and more blatant in is acts of repression. In fact the plan issued by the Committee on Strengthen National Competitiveness explicated proclaims an increased crackdown against MTU’s membership, making the absurd claim that the ‘formation of an extra-legal union by illegal residents’ is part of the tendency towards neglect for the law brought about by undocumented migration. This continuous attack against MTU’s leadership in combination with the overall strengthening of crackdown against undocumented migrant workers has created a very dire situation for MTU, draining it of leadership and making it very difficult to meet and organize new members and activists.

On the one hand it should be stated that since targeted crackdown constitutes an attack on the rightful union activities of a KCTU affiliate it must be seen as repression not only against MTU but against KCTU itself and the labor movement in general. On the other hand, however, the strength with which the government has been able to repress MTU calls attention to the particular vulnerability of undocumented migrant workers; as brutal and obvious as targeted crackdown is it is very difficult to challenge on a legal basis and almost impossible for migrant workers to challenge on their own. This is where intervention from international organizations such as the ILO and UN become important; it is uplifting to know that the Committee on Freedom of Association is considering the issue of targeted crackdown along with the issue of MTU’s legal union status and that the problem has also been addressed by the UN Special Rapporteurs on the Human Rights of Migrants and Human Rights Defenders. It is also demonstrates how necessary solidarity with the native Korean labor movement and support from civil society organizations are for undocumented migrant workers who are organizing to demand their rights.


Conclusion

Thus, in conclusion, I would like to make the following suggestion to trade unions and civil society organizations who are seeking to address repression against undocumented migrant workers. First, it is of course highly necessary for labor and human rights organization become a voice criticizing and calling attention to the rights abuse that arise in the course of immigration raids, detention and deportation. In order to foster migrant workers’ agency, however, unions and NGOs need to go beyond simple raising issues to actually providing resources and protection for undocumented migrant workers who seek to stand up for their rights and organize themselves. This means everything from legal and technical support when needed to providing sanctuary and training to undocumented migrants so they may find the space and develop the skills to begin acting for themselves. For unions this means in part actively organizing undocumented migrant workers as union members. Most importantly, it is necessary to recognize and actively support the claim that is at the center of MTU’s Supreme Court case- that is that undocumented migrant workers are still workers, with entitlement to all of the rights afforded workers everywhere in domestic and international law and standards. To recognize this claim means to realize that the attack against undocumented migrant workers is means to maintain them as an easily exploitable workforce and to stop them from organizing, as well as a violation of their fundamental human rights. This in turn means recognizing this attack as an affront to workers everywhere and a central issue of the human rights and labor movements worldwide.