9
August 1945 and March 1947, there were 2,388 labor demonstrations involving 600,000 workers
(Koo 2001: 26). However, this massive movement was dead by the late 1940s, suppressed both
by the American occupation and the Rhee governments.
In the popular movement that overthrew Rhee in April 1960, workers played little role
(Lee Y. C. 104-6). The brief democratic opening before Park’s coup in May 1961 saw the birth
of hundreds of unions and a surge of disputes. Whereas in the 1950s under the Rhee government
there were only three strikes and about 50 labor disputes per year, between April 1960 and May
1961 more than 200 disputes involving 75 strikes occurred. After the coup, Park easily squashed
this movement. With a few preemptive repressive labor law changes, his regime was able to
prevent the rise of a strong labor movement until the 1970s. Despite a three-fold increase in the
number of workers to 3.4 million during 1960-1970, the overall level of disputes remained very
low (Koo 2001: 29). This was not because workers were well treated under Park. South Korean
real wages were low by world standards and their growth rates lagged behind productivity
increases (Deyo 1987: 196
-9 ). Although labor disputes increased and unions expanded in the
1970s, only during the 1980s did labor protests become a serious threat to the state.
5
Students’ relations with the Korean state followed the patterns of peasants and labor only
in part. Although students had a tradition of protest against colonial rule, the huge student
movement that toppled the Rhee regime in 1960 had little connection to that distant past. The
brutal practices of Rhee’s police during the 1960 presidential election triggered the movement
and the rapid expansion of the educational system in the 1950s provided the shock troops for it.
The protest began as a low-key event in a provincial town by high school students.
6
These
students only protested their school officials who high-handedly made them go to classes on a
5
Workers would become part of the Minjung movement together with students, intellectuals, religious and peasants’
groups in the 1980s that eventually forced the generals to democratize the country in 1987 (Abelmann 20-38).
6
The following account is based on Kim Q. Y. 1983.
Convention