"Struggle Flash" - a strike bulletin produced by the NCPD ("Task Force") and posted on the internet reports a "heightened mood of tension amongst the unit unions in each firm". As of 17th January, KCTU leaders from 42 unions in eight different industries - a total of 399 have been sued or summonsed. The riot police have already arrested 300 people at legally approved rallies. 21 people have been seriously injured. For example, Cho Young-yong of Ulsan's Hyundai Motors had to have 56 stitches in a head wound. Kung Jae-koo from Asia Motors was hospitalized for surgery to his eye.

But on 18th January the bulletin's headlines were just as 'up-beat' with news of support still flooding in: "Various social groups wave their hands of support and solidarity". 849 writers had told Kim Young-sam to "stop blind-walking" and condemned the government's response to the workers as "obnoxious and nasty". 3,551 members of Seoul National University - all its lecturers, undergraduates, graduates, alumni and professors - had signed a statement protesting that "What President Kim was trying to restore was not the economy but dictatorship."

Fifteen Catholic priests had set up a tent alongside the KCTU leaders at the cathedral and launched a campaign distributing stickers saying, "We have chosen the wrong president" and "I hate civilian dictatorship". Other priests - in Chun-gu - leaving a mass they had held for the "repentance" of the Kim Young-sam regime, had found their path blocked by the riot police. "We went through the barricades (only) when union members assembled around the procession, surrounded the police and broke down the barricades after a heavy scuffle".

Workers everywhere - on strike or not on strike - were on the march - defying bans, defeating police and carrying on with their demonstrations peacefully. In Taegu there was a rally of textile workers demanding the arrest of the boss of Sampoong - a local factory - because of his "murderous assaults". After the rally they marched to a local police station. Then they organized a "night of unity" among workers of the dyeing industry, and proceeded through the city with candles in hand. Night marches are strictly speaking illegal but that wasn't stopping them breaking out all over the country.

Park Seok-woon, one of the NCPD's best-known organizers, was speaking later that day at an opposition "symposium" in a plush auditorium at the parliament building. "The opposition parties," he said, addressing himself to some of their leaders in the hall, "Maintain that 'the people are not ready for this fight', but 'the people' are all already involved in it. The only ones who are not are the Chaebol (bosses)". He described the work of his organization. "No less than 200 campaign teams go out every day distributing leaflets, collecting signatures, raising funds and selling protest postcards (at ten times their cost)".

Indeed, their temporary headquarters in Hyanglin Church Hall, down a narrow, back street in Myong Dong, is like a revolutionary nerve center - again "high-tech". A whole bank of computers is in use all the time. With these and with mobile phones, close contact is maintained with the areas and an impressive level of information and propaganda is produced. Leaflets, results of opinion polls, plans for raising awareness, bulletins are e-mailed and faxed backwards and forwards. Circles of young people ("warriors" as Park calls them) earnestly discuss the day's activity and their responsibilities. Others prepare billboards or large collecting boxes and stack them up. Groups go out with their portable tables and come back hours later to warm up beside the stoves. Volunteers stay overnight, curled up in sleeping bags on a small stage. Others work on into the small hours, like those who translate and despatch the "Struggle Flash Strike News".

An agitated Hukkoku worker was visiting the KCTU camp looking for help:

"Newspapers who are Chaebol-owned don't print anything about our plight," he said with exasperation. "Even the 'progressive' Hankyure is frightened of losing its advertising revenue. So we collected six million won ourselves and paid for a half-page appeal in the paper on the 15th January.

"On the twelfth day of the strike, we had been gathering at the factory gate to go to the central rally when the managers and 20 gangsters, Korean Mafia, employed by the company, launched a terror attack on the workmen. Result - three persons with broken ribs and one with a broken nose. Another 40 were injured, seven hospitalized.

"And now the company wants the trade union's leader to pay 408 million won for damage in the clash. The trade union is saying to the police, the prosecutor, the city hall, the land administration to investigate and punish. But they did not have any action. We want something done about this employer, internationally if possible, especially through the unions in Japan".

Foreign journalists visiting Myong Dong were also given a rough handout about the self-immolation in Ulsan of 33 year-old union activist, Chung Jae-sung:

"On 10th January, after a rally at the Taewha riverside, Hyundai Motor Company trade unionists and their families marched towards the city's center. The police shot teargas and blocked the way. Mr Chung was at the front of the march. He shouted: 'You steal the democracy; do not block the march!' But the police continued...

'This is paint thinner,' he shouted. 'If you do not retreat I will burn myself to death!' But riot police continued to block (the way). Suddenly, Mr. Chung threw the paint-thinner onto his body and (set) fire (to) himself. His body became burning. He shouted 'Struggle!'.

"His comrades wanted the police to hand over the fire extinguisher but they did not. They shot more tear-gas. They didn't call the fire emergency car. His friends called the fire station - 119 - with telephone borrowed from near shop. His body trembling, he shouts: 'Down with the anti-workers law!'

"He is brought to (the local) hospital and then moved to Seoul. 25% of his skin was burnt with 2 and 3 degrees. At the hospital he shouts: 'The bad bills must be defeated!'"

After the incident, Hyundai management shut down the factory. On 30th January there was a demonstration "In hope for Mr Chung's quick recovery". Though he will always suffer from constant, debilitating pain, Chung Jae-sung's life is no longer in danger. Nevertheless, to his chagrin, most of the hated labor laws which drove him to take such drastic action remain on the statute books.

And there are the students - often first into the struggle and a barometer of discontent and unrest. So far, this time round, they have been noticeably absent, most of them still on their long winter holiday. They have been participating in the movement here and there as individuals, with just the occasional small demonstration of the students still on campus organized by one or another group. But a feature in one of the left papers gives a clue as to what has happened to the legendary South Korean student movement. Chung Young-ki, the president of the largest student organization - Hanchongryon (the Korean Federation of University Student Councils) - was in hiding from the police. His organization had over a million members but had suffered enormously at the hands of the state since last August when it organized an 'illegal' Festival in the grounds of Yonsei University to commemorate Korea's liberation from Japanese rule and discuss the sensitive issue of re-unification.

Then, under orders from Kim Young-sam, the riot police had laid siege to the university for nine days - a massive force of 21,000 plus 5,000 special officers. They bombarded the students with tear-gas from helicopters, stopped all supplies of food, medicine, water and electricity. They picked up people who just happened to be in the area near the university, beat them up and sexually assaulted young women. When, eventually, the police moved in on the students they went for anyone and everyone. Nearly 6,000 were corralled and taken to the police cells where they were interrogated and many of them badly tortured. As of January 1997, 357 students were still in jail, some with long sentences to serve out.

The authorities have refused to renovate the five-story general building where the students had been holed up until the final battle. They are leaving it with all its smashed windows and charred doorways fenced off as a reminder and a warning to all students not to get caught up in left-wing politics. Three women undergraduates who had watched the whole police operation in horror from their hostel windows explained how these tactics, and the mood of shock that pervaded the university afterwards, had temporarily succeeded.

"The students at Yonsei have been frightened into electing a moderate, apolitical leader as president. But let's hope it's only a temporary setback. How can we rest easy while our friends are still being held? And also, our own prospects of getting a job are narrowing by the day, even when we graduate with good results. Naturally we identify with the present struggles of workers against flexibility and increasing unemployment. We want them to win this one".

"Construction and hospital workers, car workers and clerical workers are with the KCTU. The bank-workers came over 'en bloc' from the FKTU. Rail-workers, postal workers and some transport workers, some subway and bus workers are still in the FKTU.

"The situation with the telecom workers is complicated. The national chair of the union said 'no' to all-out strike action this winter although the KTTU became affiliated to the KCTU four years ago. It is a national union but was badly weakened after the big battles of 1995, when it took on Korea Telecom. Before then it had 87 full-timers but now has only thirty-seven. The employers, who have 'traditionally' paid the wages of union full-timers, took revenge for their defeat and refused to pay any more."

Things are even more difficult in Korea's massive but shrinking garment industry. Yang Il-seok is a 25-year-old full-timer for the Chunggye Garment Workers' Union. He is responsible for finance in the union and was himself trained as a cutter.

"The average wage in our trade is around one million won (just over $1,000) a month but can go up to around 1,300,000. For machinists on piece-work, it can reach nearer 2 million That is in the periods of intensive work - going hard at it from 9am to 9pm. But there can be six months of lay-off.

"Even on the higher wage it is difficult to live throughout the year on that money. If there is lay-off in the export side of the industry then people try to find work in the middle-sized companies who do work for the home market and pay much less (although it used to be the other way round)... There is no new hiring at the moment; there's been a big reduction in the work force. Young people see it as '3D' work - dirty, dangerous and difficult.

"Union dues are 10,000 won a month. The full-timers get 250-300,000 - about a third of the average wage or even less. We're involved in setting up our own co-op to get more money for the union. There are three branches in Seoul but only a few hundred members these days. We cover about 30,000 in the Chunggye area out of a total of 200,000 garment workers. One of our main aims is to form a Seoul area Textile and Garment trade union but as yet that is illegal."

Organizing in the small sub-contractors' sweatshops is still an uphill struggle. Things have changed since 1970 when the workers' hero Chun Tae-il threw himself as a protest from a bridge in the Chunggye 'Peace Market', burning to death and demanding justice for the young women enslaved in the industry. But ten- and 12-hour days in the dust and heat of machine rooms, stuffed to the roofs with made and half-made clothes, does no good to the health or family life of the still mainly female workforce. Thousands produce goods for the same big 'names' but are deliberately divided into units of less than five employees through a system of sub-contracting. This ensures they are not covered by any employment law and will be afraid of joining a union, let alone striking, for fear of losing their jobs.

In the hospitals, the independent unions have had more luck. Hyun Chung-hee is chair of the Seoul National University hospital workers' branch. She was calling in at the union camp.

"With two thousand workers, our medical center is the largest in Korea... I was a nurse before I was elected to the full-time position... We took strike action for 15 days... 1,200 would attend the daily meetings - that is all except those providing the emergency cover. We will be coming out again on 18th February," she said with great pride, "along with everyone else". Her pager beeped, she apologized, made her farewells and rushed away.

Tens of thousands of people had gathered in bright winter sunshine to voice, again and in no uncertain terms, their pressing demands: 'Withdraw the two bad laws!', 'Restore democracy now!' and 'Down with Kim Young-sam!'

Here is a noisy colorful but disciplined crowd. Many sit cross-legged on the freezing ground some on little thermal squares (of cardboard covered with aluminum), distributed systematically at the beginning by their contingents' leader. Others on polystyrene or newspapers. They are in neat rows - singing, chanting their responses to a speaker's fiery words, swaying in lines to a favorite workers' song or jumping up and sitting back down in a "Mexican wave" that swings through the crowd from one end of the park to the other.

Here are the orange banners of the construction workers and the subway workers, the green banners of Kia car-workers, Daewoo with their white flags, Hyundai and hospital-workers with yellow, Munyo Electronics and metalworkers - blue and the big red banner of the disabled. The teachers are here, determined to have their say. Buddhist monks and Catholic priests and nuns have come with their placards. Even the women who drive away the evil spirits have turned up.

A 'struggle' head-band seemed inappropriate for a man who in the 1980s had failed to get solidarity action from his own powerful union or from the Trades Union Congress for the British miners in their famous year-long battle with the Thatcher government. Worse still, bearing in mind the KCTU's battle for multi-unionism, he had become unpopular even with other far from militant trade union leaders for signing single union and no-strike deals with employers. Now he had been writing indignant letters of protest, condemning the Korean Government for their "denial of workers' rights to form trade unions of their own choosing and restricting trade union solidarity action".

No doubt in a gesture intended by the rally organizers to make him feel at home, he was introduced to the crowd with the strains of the Internationale being played on a synthesizer. (Singing it was still illegal in South Korea but many people, even loosely connected with the movement, knew the words). "I speak on behalf of 120 million members around the world," he declared. "I salute your courage in fighting the unjust laws, stolen in without the light of day". He was obviously warming to the occasion. He threw in a few unfortunate phrases like "working for the prosperity of Korea" and, rather inaccurately, referred to the "united trade union movement" of the country. But his solemn pledge that the ICFTU "would not stay silent until all trade unionists in jail are released" was just what the strikers wanted to hear.

"Where were you in the 1970s when we needed help so desperately? Where were you in 1980 when the guns of Chun Doo-hwan forced his dictatorship on us? Where were you when so many of us were being taken away to 'purification' camps? The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) has had contact with the Korean labor movement for decades. The AFL-CIO (major US trade union federation) established its Asia-American Free Labor Institute (AAFLI) in Seoul in 1971. For the next sixteen years it cooperated actively with the KCIA-appointed leaders of the FKTU. It provided thousands of United States aid dollars to the FKTU.

"Never was it recorded, however, that the ICFTU or AAFLI stood with the workers or the unions against oppression. In the 1970s when the women workers at Dong-il Textile were being beaten and humiliated, they were silent. In the early 1980s when the male unionists were being thrown into prison or beaten by the 'kusadae', not a word was heard from international unions. Workers in Korea know little or nothing about ICFTU, and have come to believe that AAFLI is an agent of the American government, not a legitimate union operation at all."

Perhaps indeed the ICFTU and other international labor 'representatives', in the light of the new circumstances, have now decided to back both unions. After a little steam has been released, they will return to the task of trying to steer them along the respectable channels of class collaboration and conciliation. They will condemn attacks on workers in order to maintain their credibility. They are no doubt motivated by the fact that wages and conditions driven too low in South Korea not only threaten their members elsewhere but constitutes 'unfair' competition for its trading 'partners' in Europe and the USA.

As a new member of the top 29 capitalist nations' club, the OECD or Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, South Korea must now have its labor relations 'regulated' by the OECD Trade Union Advisory Committee. The KCTU's delegation to a special commission set up by this body, which included its International secretary Yoon Young-mo, had already arrived in Paris by the time Bill Jordan was appearing in Jongmyo Park. Around him grew the chants of "Scrap the Ruling Party!" "Kick out Kim Young-sam!" and " Punch-kill the evil labor laws!" Banks of huge loudspeakers boom out revolutionary songs. A big white placard reads: "New policy of not paying for the strike period - 'No work; no pay'. So you capitalists who don't do any work shouldn't get any pay!"

It is clear that there are two distinct trends within the labor movement internationally and both co-exist within the KCTU itself. There is that of genuine struggle against the bosses and their system and that of compromise, reform and getting along with capitalism. At the height of the South Korean movement in January, the former definitely seemed to be in the ascendancy.

A post-graduate student in Jongmyo Park 18th January:

"We need activists a lot... If they arrest them we will not be able to crack the problems of capitalist society. Yes, I believe the social system must be changed. Even though there is internet communication with other workers, we need more international solidarity and workers in other parts of the world should be aware of what's going on in Korea."

His partner says the new labor laws should definitely be repealed but she has not been on strike. She works for Samsung, one of the Chaebol conglomerates, which does not allow any union to organize.

At the same rally, the president of the Tong-Jak branch of the Korea Telecom Union, with a headband that reads 'Abolish the evil labor law' explains:

"I and my colleagues are fighting for workers' rights in Korea and we would appreciate support from workers in other countries. We have participated in the demos and wanted to strike but we have had some internal difficulties with a new leadership that only started from 1st January. But, if they go for the leaders of the KCTU, we will respond by an immediate general strike in telecommunications which will paralyze the country. There is a clause that prohibits strikes by telecom and essential sector workers and imposes compulsory arbitration. We need international solidarity for its repeal. I most certainly won't be voting for Kim Young Sam's party in the presidential election this autumn. Greetings."

Kim Jong-woong, branch leader from the Industrial Chemical section of the Federation of Korean Trade Unions, on the 26th January, at the joint trade union demonstration in Yoido square says with a smile:

"Today is a great day. We have released all our discontents into the air. We are hopeful that we can achieve all we want. I am really happy that my union is fighting together with the KCTU, even though I am FKTU. I think we have become more energetic than we used to be through fighting alongside the KCTU. We would like international solidarity. Please help us!"

At the same demo, a woman teacher with a yellow headband that reads 'We want the Korean Teachers' Trade Union recognized' speaks with confidence:

"I have been teaching since 1982. We are very vigorous and have a high feeling of victory. I don't think it's going to be easy to get our union legalized because our government knows that we teachers are powerful. This government is not very democratic. They are afraid of teachers' power because we teach our students things and then they teach their parents. Teachers can have a big influence. They think we are dangerous, they don't like us."

This rally was indeed a show of the potential strength of the combined trade union movement but the numbers had reached nothing like the million or even half a million that many had been talking of. Already there was a feeling that it would not be possible to switch back on the full force of general strike action. The high point of the struggle was over. The 'fourth phase' of the general strike was discussed and planned, but even the Wednesday strikes were dropped, in the interests of giving the government and the opposition parties a chance to change the law sufficiently to satisfy the movement. Round table talks were held, the parliamentarians would come back to the question, but every day saw new delays. 'Hanbogate' was proving to be a big distraction but such an embarrassment to the government that some other sensation had to be engineered to draw the heat.

The much-publicized defection of two families from North Korea in January had hardly caused a ripple amongst the determined strikers and supporters. A bigger "fish" was now needed. Sure enough, on 13th February, the day of the KCTU's annual congress, which might otherwise have got considerable news coverage, a dramatic announcement was hitting the headlines. The Secretary of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party, who was one of its most influential theoreticians, was in the South Korean embassy in Beijing.

Hwang Jang-yop was supposedly denouncing the regime in whose hierarchy he had been one of the most important influences. In a much-publicized letter, purportedly written by him, he demagogically ridiculed the idea that there could be socialism in a country where people were starving. The point is valid but it seemed conveniently designed to provide just the kind of ammunition the Southern regime could use if it felt strong enough to conduct a McCarthyite witch-hunt against the students' and workers' movement. But again, the participants from the front-line would not be fooled by these worn-out tactics.

Worker delegates at the KCTU Congress were in a somber but determined mood. They spoke of countless sackings and victimizations for trade union activity. They spoke of wages that barely cover the necessities of life. And that's while premiums are still being paid for overtime and night-working. The much-vaunted 'flexibility' would cut off this lifeline and that accounts for the strength of opposition seen in the strikes and demonstrations. They spoke of their hatred for the bosses who squeeze every last drop out of their work force already.

The KCTU leadership not only did not bring forward the next round of strikes, but, in the event, postponed it on the pretext of giving the parliamentarians more time. But the decision was probably based on a feeling that it was no longer possible to achieve all-out action. More forceful and fuller action earlier on would have achieved greater results, regardless of whether the National Assembly had been convened or not.

Parliament was only reopened on 17th February. A week after its congress, the KCTU was no longer demanding the complete repeal of the law but announced a list of ten "conditions" that had to be met by changes to the law. Hundreds of teachers' union members moved in and occupied the headquarters of opposition parties to persuade them to take up their case. (In 1989, 1,500 teachers had been sacked and permanently blacklisted for organizing the Teachers' Union and Kim Young-sam himself had once demonstrated for their reinstatement and the legalization of the KTU. They are still waiting.)

Public indignation was mounting at the rapidly concluded and insufficient investigations into the $6 billion Hanbo loan scandal. Top bankers and ruling party politicians were being arrested and sent to jail along with the Chaebol's owner. One of them seemed to be aiming his remarks at the very top when he claimed as he went down that he was "only a feather" in the affair. The question on everyone's lips (and in many a cartoonist's picture) was "Where is the body (of the bird)?" - is it the president's son or the president himself?

In the last few days of February, the KCTU organized daily sit-down protests by about 1,000 individual and federation union leaders from 2pm-6pm in front of the parliament building. When broader action was eventually called - for Friday 28th February, it amounted to half-day or four-hour strikes and city and workplace demonstrations. In some of Ulsan's giant factories, for example, the action took the form of a 'rolling' strike - each department at a time and then only for an hour. The following week, no action was planned or taken.

The strike which had broken with such explosive force had, at least temporarily, lost its momentum. Whether it could be regained - in March or in May, remained to be seen. For now, many activists felt the important thing was to concentrate on building up the unions' strength in the workplaces through the collective bargaining process and move towards setting up some kind of party that could carry the struggle on in the political arena.

In the longer run, and with a skilful leadership, these South Korean workers will show the world that no diversion will be allowed to stand in the way of an all out struggle to transform society. The mighty conflict between the classes was by no means over; it did not start only in December 1996 and too much lay behind it for half-measures to be sufficient to bring it to an end. At different times it has been and will be conducted by different means - industrial struggles, political struggles, uprisings. But why do feelings run so deep? Why have so many working people been prepared to risk so much in a trial of strength with their rulers - government and Chaebol? Can socialist ideas find an echo, develop a physical force?