Remarks at official meeting result in his suspension
"Members of trade unions are Reds."
This comment, made by an official from the Ministry of Government Administration & Home Affairs at a meeting organized for high-ranked Gangwon province public employees, has sparked fierce controversy.
A video of the 90-minute lecture, made on February 21, was released June 15 by the Korean Government Employees’ Union (KGEU), one of the nation’s two umbrella labor groups for public workers.
On the video, the lecturer, identified only as "Professor Lee" of Hanyang University, said, "Frankly speaking, [members of the Korean Teachers and Educational Workers’ Union] are very wicked. Persons who shouldn’t be government employees and teachers tend to join powerful organizations," he said about members of the union.
His criticism also extended to trade unions, which he called "Reds," a slang term for Communist. "These organizations need spies because they need information," he continued. At the time the comments were made, Prof. Lee was in charge of supporting educational workers’ groups at the Ministry of Education and Human Resources and dealt with management-labor negotiations at the teachers’ union last year. Following the incident, he has been suspended from office for a year. In a telephone interview with The Hankyoreh, Prof. Lee said, "It was my mistake to use the word "Reds" to refer to labor unions. The point was that a culture that considers the unionists as communists should be eliminated. I admit that I used some improper terms in the lecture and I apologize for it." The KGEU reacted strongly, saying, "A government which should be spearheading the establishment of a new management-labor culture is instead [backing up] unfair labor practices." Park Gyeong-su, a labor attorney for the KGEU, said, "It is very shocking that the lecturer used shallow expressions like ’Reds’ and ’spies’ to refer to the trade unions. Moreover, he instructed on ways to conduct unfair labor practices throughout his lecture." Mr. Park added, "I don’t think there will be proper dialogue [between the two sides] under such circumstances, even if public servants’ unions take part in the negotiations within a legal framework." Mr. Park said that the incident was not the fault of a single instructor, but rather the entire ministry. A ministry official responded by saying it would "take proper measures after investigating the facts."
