South Africa and South Korea have a lot in common when it comes to labor unrest. Black mine workers in South Africa and a wide range of workers in South Korea have launched crippling nationwide strikes in an effort to take full advantage of their respective governments` decisions to ease restrictions in the name of democratic reform. The issues in both cases are mostly economic. But as tensions grow, political concerns cannot be far behind.
The black mine workers` issues are quite traditional. Mainly they want higher wages. But the mine strike`s implications could mark a turning point in South African history. The 30 percent pay raise sought by the strikers would leave them with an income still far lower than that of their white counterparts. Since labor issues are central among the infuriating differences in the lives of South Africa`s blacks and whites that must be settled before the republic ever can have internal peace, South Africa`s growing black labor movement may represent its last best hope for orderly change.
The latest round of labor unrest is South Africa`s most dramatic since its white-minority regime legalized black labor unions a decade ago. Production at almost a third of the gold and coal mines in the mineral-rich republic is said to have stopped after black miners staged the biggest walkout in the country`s history. If it cripples the mines that account for about two- thirds of the republic`s annual foreign exchange earnings, it could put a serious pinch on South Africa`s already ailing economy.
The growth of South Africa`s labor movement is a direct result of the republic`s economic growth. By helping produce the jobs that employ the workers who organized the unions, the government that created apartheid may have sown the seeds of that dreadful system`s destruction.
Similarly in South Korea, the issues immediately at stake are economic, a fact that undoubtedly has helped encourage its government to refrain from reimposing the tight restrictions on labor organizers that it lifted in late June in the name of reform. For now, South Korean workers mainly want a larger share of the nation`s remarkable economic growth. But no one should be surprised to see political issues follow closely behind. Once a group has received a taste of the democratic process, including the successful expression and negotiation of grievances, its members only hunger for more.
Events in South Africa and South Korea show the close linkage between economic and political freedom. The recognition of labor organizations is essential to economic growth, and though unions in some older industrial economies like the United States may have become institutionalized and conservative over time, they at least begin as democratic forces for reform. Labor activism around issues of wage and work conditions leads inevitably to political activism and political empowerment that, in turn, leads to rising expectations. Once that democratizing process is in motion, it is not easily turned back.