Teacher Unions, Social Movements and the Politics of Education in Asia by John P. Synott

Author:John P. Synott [Synott, John P.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Sociology, General
ISBN: 9781351734240
Google: Me1HDwAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-11-22T02:22:42+00:00

The Gender Factor in Industrial Relations

The discussion will presently describe how a combination of work-site controls, worker-organisation controls and punitive and prescriptive legislation served as instruments to control labour. However, gender was an additional factor, structured by the high numbers of women in the industrial work force and the 40-50% wage gap between men and women (Matsui 1987), The situation of women in the work force generally is relevant to understanding industrial relations in schools, where an absolute majority of teachers were females, with over 60% of teachers in middle schools and 70% at primary level being females (Korean Educational Development Institute 1994). To provide an appropriate context for understanding the conditions of female teachers, it is important to recognise a broad pattern of differential, inferior, treatment of women in the work-force in South Korea.

After the 'defensive modernisation from above' (Choi 1989, 284) was embarked upon, women constituted the fastest-growing section of the labour force, particularly after the 'Yushin Reforms' of October, 1972, when General Park proclaimed martial law, suspended and revised the Constitution and concentrated all power into his own hands (Sohn 1989). In the programme of securing political order through economic growth, the female labour force served both purposes, as noted in a report by the International Labor Office which said, 'girls are preferred not only because their discipline is better, but also because female production wages are, on average, almost 50% of male wages' (quoted in Bello and Rosenfeld 1990, 26). Along with a rate of pay that was consistently lower than all of the other NICs, the women labourers worked an average of 54 hours per week. Moreover, Ranis (1973, cited in Choi 1989, 175) stated that, in a comparative study of American and Korean assembly-line workers, the productivity of Korean workers was higher and Choi concluded that 'the high level of work performance of Korean female industrial workers must have been the most important contributing factor' in the development programme. The productivity of female workers was secured through the imposition of hierarchical and punitive patriarchal systems that combined economic exploitation with sexist practices as indicated by the following advertisement which appeared in a daily newspaper:

We oppose with all our might economic violence of all sorts by which, in the name of so-called economic development, the workers' basic rights are infringed upon and by which workers are victimised. In reality, low wages and unlawful dismissals force the workers into starvation, industrial accidents and pollution of all kinds lead to death and wretched working conditions in foreign invested firms force women workers to sacrifice their virginity for foreign managers, and so forth. We warn the government of this miserable state of reality (advertisement placed in the Dong A Ilbo, January 11, 1975; quoted in Choi 1989, 167).

However, the harsh exploitation of women workers resulted in what Bello and Rosenfeld (1990, 27) characterised as 'an unforseen and unwanted side effect': the mobilisation of women workers into a resistance that became an organised struggle for workers' rights. Matsui (1987)

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