The starting point of using the visual media in the labor movement in Korea was early 80's. Some of the progressive activists groups tried to use the slide film and the 8 mm film for training the workers, but it was very difficult for them to continue this kind of activity because of three reasons.
1, The lack of the technological infrastructure : Video industry was not developed until then and there was no proper distribution tool.
2, The lack of mass organization : There were just few democratic unions then, and most of the workers movement organization existed as underground group and there was no space to use the visual media
3, Violent oppression against the progressive activists : many of these groups were attacked and couldn't continue the activity.
Mass struggle and the use of the video during the late 80's
This situation changed after the nationwide struggle by the workers in 1987. At that time, most households had their own VCRs and even many of the workers started to have their own camcorders. In fact, the film industry was feeding off the video industry. Also, immediately after the struggle, many democratic unions were organized and the necessity for using the media as a communication and training tool became clear, against the anti-labor mainstream media.
Under thess circumstances, the alternative video organizations tried to make the videos about the labor movement. One of those organizations which is still active is Labor News Production. LNP (Labor News Production) was established in 1989 and from that time made more than 30 educational videos on independent and progressive labor movement in Korea.
The experience of Labor News Production
At the beginning, it was organized by the unification of some small cinema movement groups in Korea. The principal objective of this unification was to promote the labor movement. After the great labor struggle of 1987, they resolved to make the videos to provoke the solidarity consciousness of whole national labors, by reporting each labor struggle of each region or industry to the other labors whole over the country. This objective was connected directly with the task which was urgently needed in labor movement in Korea at that time, that is, whole national solidarity organization of workers should be urgently organized.
Production
LNP's main activities can be categorized as two areas. The one is producing the videos and the other is running the training program for the workers.
Concerning the production, the first Labor News was produced on April 1989. Since then LNP made different kinds of educational videos. The early videos made by LNP was a kind of combing the different short corners. It consisted of several columns such as recent news of workers struggle, special essay on the current issue about workers, lecture which was needed for workers at that specific time, short animation which staired the current political issues, and music video. Running time was about 50-60 minutes.
But after 1989, LNP started to produce the feature-length educational documentaries. And the content of the video became diversified including unemployment, criticizing the mainstream media, the history of the labor movement etc.
Distribution
LNP always co-produced the videos with the democratic unions. In 1991.1.22, the whole national workers' solidarity organization was set up. It was named as The Korean Trade Unions Council (KTUC) in Korean [chun-no-hyup]. It acted for political demands of democratic trade unions in Korea. The Labor News Production(LNP) have co-produced The Labor News with KTUC since the foundation of the KTUC. And now KCTU is newly organized last year representing half million workers and LNP also coproduce some of the works with KCTU. And according to this co-production, distribution could be possible through the union organizations.
Training
Concerning the training area, since 1991, LNP has trained the workers and ordinary citizens to make their own videos. Due to this training program, some workers are beginning to make the videos on their own. The public access is not allowed here but LNP tries to organize the people even before the legislation for public access, LNP is now running the 3 month video making program in Han Gyu Rae cultural center from 1995 and at the same time, is organizing national federation of workers' video making group.
There is one interesting case concerning the workers in the big company. Recently, cable TV system is introduced in such big companies as Hyundai and Kia. During the lunch time, the company broadcasts their own programs. So, the union workers(they are affiliates with the KCTU) are now struggling against the company. The workers demand the scheduling, facilities, education program, etc. This is one of the important starting point for public access or local TV in Korea.
The case of [Urgent video report on General strike Vol.2]
The general strike by Korean democratic unions this January symbolically represented the workers's fightback against the Neoliberalism which attacks the basic rights of working people. During this strike, technologies which usually serve the capitalist ideologies was used for the empowerment of working people. Among those, electronic communication and video were widely and effectively used.
Concerning the video, Labor News Production made the urgent two video reports on the strike. These two videos which includes the 1st report (30 minutes) and the 2nd report (50 minutes) were made in the middle of the strike and immediately distributed throughout the nation using the networking of the existing democratic unions.
These videos were possible by several factors and two of which are as follows.
1, Although the actual production members of LNP were just 3, they had much experience of making this kind of urgent report and elaborated the inherent form of the omnibus newsreel composed of report, analysis, regional report by each region, speech by workers and citizens and music videos.
2, Various actual footage which no one can ever find from mainstream TV were widely captured by many un-named camera-persons. The temporary shooting collective for the strike formed by several independent producers and students took many pictures on the important mass rallies and many regional reports were shot by NGO people and workers in that region.
Outcome of these collective activities were then widely distributed.
Working people saw these videos and use these as a informing and discussing tool for the understanding of situation and making future strategy. And those who don't have much information on the strike (because the mainstream media just showed the small portion and usually distorted images of the struggle which is the universal case throughout the world) finally knew different and real(!) situation of our country.
These videos were also screened in other countries such as USA, Japan, Germany, France, Brasil and England. For example, Berlin international film festival invited these to the Forum section of the Festival and Ogawamach cineclub (Japanese independent videomaking group) screened Japanese version in the solidarity meeting with Korean union leaders.
Addition to these, the videos were immediately put into internet strike homepage run by SING (http://kpd.sing-kr.org/strike ; chief producer of LNP is consultant to SING) and many foreign audience saw those images to find out what's goin' on in Korea.
The struggle continues now and LNP will make new newsreels and documentaries on workers movement as always. We hope that this kind of activity can strengthen the struggle and also the solidarity among countries. And also believe that this field of labor video is the vital part of democratic media and will try to strengthen the movement for People's TV which was started last year for the whole democratization of the broad and narrow casting media.
Challenges for the labor videos
Comparing the current situation with the situation of the late 80's, many things have changed. The nationwide federation of the labor unions became stronger and there are lots of new issues on the labor movement such as the new management strategy from the capital and the struggle concerning the labor law. Also, it seems that the possibility of establishing the nationwide networking of videomaking labor groups becomes strong. And still the mainstream media are very anti-labor and there is a video law which prohibits the alternative media movement.
So, we still have many obstacles and also we see growing power of using media in the alternative way by the workers. We now must have new strategies based on our own experiences. Some of them are as follows.
- Strengthening the professional video making skills and ability
- financial structure- organizing and training the videomaking workers group
- Establishing the communications department or media department in the unions which is in charge of labor videos
- Fight for democratic media situation
Although we face the lack of resources which non-profit organization must face, and although the mainstream media became more powerful and commercialized, with the growing concern on the democratization of the society and the media by the people, using the alternative media in the labor movement can become stronger if we take the right path and proceed our practice.
Myoung Joon Kim
Chief producer of Labor News Production
Vice-president of Videazimut