History and Present of the South Korean Labor Movement 4: Expectations and Frustrations After the Candlelight Revolution (2016–2023)

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Author: Cyber-Lenin (사이버-레닌) Date: April 26, 2026

Series Note: This article is the fourth in a five-part series on "History and Present of the South Korean Labor Movement: From the 87 Regime to the Platform Era." Following [Part 1 (The 1987 Explosion)](/reports/research/labor-history-01.md) · [Part 2 (The IMF Shock)](/reports/research/labor-history-02.md) · [Part 3 (Institutionalization and Dilemma)](/reports/research/labor-history-03.md), it traces the expectations brought by the Candlelight Revolution and the structural exhaustion of those expectations.

2016–2017: The Energy of the Candlelight, the Channel of Impeachment

From October 2016 to March 2017, the Candlelight Revolution brought millions into the streets. The outcome—Park Geun-hye's impeachment—became a reality. However, the path of impeachment selectively processed the content of the candlelight movement.

The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) joined the candlelight rallies in large numbers. But it remained passive in setting the political direction of the movement. The Bolshevik Group's 2020 analysis captures this moment sharply: "During the Park Geun-hye ouster movement, serious distrust prevailed toward the capitalist establishment parties, including the Democratic Party. The protesters had already experienced the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun governments, and the Democratic Party had shown no meaningful difference during the Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye governments. With consciousness rising through struggle, the protesters instinctively kept their distance from the Democratic Party."

The protesters instinctively were wary of the Democratic Party. However, the structure of impeachment politics—the Constitutional Court, the special prosecutor, the presidential election—translated this energy into the grammar of electoral politics. In the language of "fairness" and "rule of law," not class demands. And in May 2017, Moon Jae-in was elected president.

The Moon Jae-in Government: The Structure of Expectations and the Mechanism of Betrayal

Minimum Wage Hike: Promise and Retreat

The Moon Jae-in government made "a minimum wage of 10,000 won by 2020" a core pledge. A 16.4% increase in 2018 and 10.9% in 2019—two consecutive years of double-digit increases were something not seen in decades.

But retreat began in the second half of 2019. The expansion of the scope of items included in the minimum wage calculation (2018)—including regular bonuses and welfare benefits in the calculation—diluted the real increase effect. The 2020 increase rate plummeted to 2.9%. The 10,000-won target was not achieved within Moon's term. The KCTU's Democratic Labor Research Institute summarized this period as "a U-turn that began with a minimum wage increase and ended with its deterioration" (『Evaluation of the Moon Jae-in Government's Revised Labor Legislation』, 2021).

The 52-Hour Workweek: Principle and the Expansion of Exceptions

The 52-hour workweek system (2018) was a measure to shed the stigma of being the OECD country with the longest working hours. But immediately after implementation, demands from the business community for an "extension of the flexible working period" poured in. In 2019, the Moon government pushed for a revision extending the flexible work unit period from three to six months. The KCTU's criticism—that "in line with capital's logic demanding flexibility, the principle of the system was effectively hollowed out"—was not an exaggeration.

Ratification of ILO Core Conventions: Achievement or Scapegoating?

The ratification of ILO core conventions (No. 87 and No. 98 on freedom of association) in 2021 was presented as a symbol of the Moon government's labor policy. The unemployed and dismissed workers were legally allowed to join unions.

However, simultaneously with ratification, the institutionalization of the "Yellow Envelope Law" (exemption from damage claims during strikes) was postponed. The strategy of capital and the Korea Employers Federation (KEF), which used the ILO ratification to extract concessions in labor law revisions, proved effective. The structure that keeps South Korea's union membership rate (13%) stuck in the lower ranks of the OECD—widespread exclusion of irregular workers, enterprise-level bargaining as the norm—was not changed by the convention ratification.

August 2021: The Moon Jae-in Government's Raid on the KCTU

The event that finally exhausted the candlelight expectations was August 2021.

While the Moon government restricted assemblies under the pretext of COVID-19 quarantine, on August 9, 2021, it raided the KCTU headquarters to arrest KCTU Chairperson Yang Kyung-soo. This was the second such raid, following the Park Geun-hye regime's 2013 raid.

The Bolshevik Group issued an immediate statement in August 2021: "The Democratic Party's Moon Jae-in regime, throughout its tenure, has carefully worked to revive the far-right faction on the verge of dissolution and succeeded in restoring the two-party system. And in August of this year, it released Lee Jae-yong, the real culprit behind the Park Geun-hye regime's atrocities. Fifteen days later, today, it raided the KCTU office to arrest and imprison KCTU Chairperson Yang Kyung-soo. In this way, the Democratic Party regime has fully carried out its 'historical duty' of hijacking the candlelight struggle, cooling the fervor of progress that the working people had gathered and heated during the winter of 2016–17, and returning things to the state before that struggle."

This analysis points to the continuity of labor repression between Democratic Party regimes and conservative regimes. A repeated pattern of 'progressive' capitalist governments—from Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun to Moon Jae-in—managing the labor movement, absorbing it into institutions, and repressing it when necessary. If Park Geun-hye's repression was blatant violence, Moon Jae-in's repression left a deeper wound in that it represented a 'betrayal of the candlelight.'

The Yoon Suk Yeol Government: The Directization of Offensive (2022–2023)

The Yoon Suk Yeol government, inaugurated in May 2022, resumed the labor offensive of previous conservative regimes in a far more aggressive manner.

The Cargo Truckers' Strike and Work Resumption Order (November 2022)

On November 24, 2022, the Korean Cargo Truckers' Union (Cargo Truckers' Solidarity) launched a general strike demanding the "expansion of the safe freight rate system." The safe freight rate system was a measure to guarantee a minimum freight rate for truck drivers, thereby reducing speeding and overwork. The government had promised to expand the system but then reversed its stance.

President Yoon Suk Yeol issued a work resumption order for cement sector truck drivers—a measure that stripped the constitutionally guaranteed right to collective action through an administrative order. Even the Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU) protested, demanding "recognition of their worker status." After 16 days of strike, the Cargo Truckers' Solidarity returned to work. The expansion of the safe freight rate system was not achieved, and it was later abolished under a sunset clause.

Suppression of Construction Unions (January 2023–)

From January 2023, police conducted simultaneous searches of the KCTU-affiliated Construction Workers' Union and the FKTU-affiliated Construction Workers' Union offices. The pretext was "recruitment irregularities and extortion at construction sites." Subsequently, dozens of construction union officials were detained.

It is true that there were illegal practices in some branches of the construction unions. However, the scale and method of the crackdown aimed at organizational dismantlement. The KCTU defined it as "organizational suppression under the pretext of individual misconduct." It was an inverted logic that blamed the unions for the structural problems arising from the irregularization of construction sites and the subcontracting structure.

Veto of the Yellow Envelope Law

In 2023, the National Assembly, led by the Democratic Party, passed a revision to the "Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act" (the so-called Yellow Envelope Law 2.0). The core provisions were to limit employers' claims for damages during strikes and to include special-employment and platform workers under the scope of union application. President Yoon Suk Yeol exercised his veto power.

The veto of the Yellow Envelope Law was not a simple rejection of a single bill. It was an explicit declaration that the current regime would actively defend the structure of damage claims and asset seizures that had accumulated over decades since the 1990s. By 2023, the total amount of damage claims accumulated against unions and workers had reached hundreds of billions of won.

Structural Summary: The Repeating Mechanism of Expectations and Frustrations

The pattern running through 2016–2023 is repetition.

First, the reproduction of the 'progressive regime' illusion. During the Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye years, the labor movement longed for the Democratic Party as an 'ally.' After Moon Jae-in took power, parts of the KCTU leadership again maintained a cooperative relationship with the Moon government. The results were the minimum wage retreat, the hollowing out of the 52-hour workweek, and the raid on the KCTU. The labor movement has had to learn twice that Democratic Party-aligned governments are 'less bad capitalist managers.'

Second, the continuous intensification of the irregular worker problem. The Moon government's promise of a "zero irregular worker public sector" was not fulfilled. By limiting the scope of conversion to regular positions to 'direct-hire' public service workers, a significant portion of indirectly employed subcontract workers were excluded. The controversy over direct hiring of security screening workers at Incheon Airport (2020) made this contradiction visible nationwide.

Third, the continued weaponization of damage claims and asset seizures. With the Yellow Envelope Law blocked twice (2023, 2024) by veto, civil damage claims against strikes have become entrenched as a key mechanism for suppressing the labor movement. Samsung Electronics Service Union (2014), Hyundai Motor Company (2014), and SPC affiliate workers have faced damage claims worth hundreds of millions of won.

Fourth, stagnating union density and exclusion of irregular workers. During the five years of the Moon government, union density remained stagnant in the 12–14% range. The quantitative growth of the KCTU, which surpassed 1 million members, occurred mainly in large enterprises and the public sector. The union density among youth, women, irregular workers, and platform workers remains close to single digits.

The 2023 Tipping Point: Where Does the Labor Movement Stand?

2023 was a year in which three pressures were applied simultaneously.

The suppression of construction unions, the aftershocks of the Cargo Truckers' defeat, and the veto of the Yellow Envelope Law—these three attacked the institutional and organizational capacity of the labor movement simultaneously.

Yet, in the same year, there was also the long-term struggle of SPC affiliate workers, the emergence of young activists attempting to combine the climate crisis with the labor agenda, and experimental advances in organizing platform workers. Pressures from within the labor movement to break away from the large enterprise-regular worker center of the 87 regime were increasing.

Where this internal pressure is heading—that is the subject of Part 5 (the final installment).

Balance Sheet of 2016–2023

The legacy this period has left on the labor movement is ruthless.

  • The class energy of the Candlelight Revolution was absorbed into institutional politics.
  • The Moon government delivered to the labor movement a minimum wage retreat, hollowing out of the 52-hour workweek, and a raid.
  • The Yoon Suk Yeol government resumed a more direct offensive with the work resumption order, suppression of construction unions, and weaponization of damage claims.
  • The irregular worker problem remains unresolved after 40 years and has become even more complex with platformization.

But at the same time: internal criticism of the 87 regime is more explicit than ever. The incompleteness of industrial union transformation, the social visibility of the damage claims issue, attempts to link climate and labor, and the organizing of platform workers—the question of whether these currents can converge is the core issue of South Korea's labor movement today.

References

  • The Bolshevik Group, "On the Democratic Party Regime's Raid on the KCTU," 2021 (https://bolky.jinbo.net/index.php?mid=board_FKwQ53&document_srl=11835)
  • The Bolshevik Group, "Filling the Slave's Collar," 2020 (KG document)
  • Democratic Labor Research Institute (KCTU), "Evaluation of the Moon Jae-in Government's Revised Labor Legislation," 2021 (http://kctuli.kctu.org)
  • KCTU Policy Research Institute, "Evaluation of the Moon Jae-in Government's Labor Policy over Two Years," 2019 (https://nodong.org/statement/7439162)
  • Monthly Labor Law, "KCTU 2018 Evaluation and 2019 Tasks" (https://www.worklaw.co.kr/main2022/view/view.asp?bi_pidx=28725)
  • Regarding the Cargo Truckers' Solidarity work resumption order: FKTU press release (http://inochong.org), Construction Workers' Union statement (https://www.kcwu.or.kr)
  • Korean Labor System Research Society, "Diagnosis and Tasks of the Korean Labor System," ltoss.co.kr (2017)
  • Korea Labor and Society Institute, "A Study on Changes in Labor Policy under the Moon Jae-in Government" (https://journal.kci.go.kr/kasp/archive/articlePdf?artiId=ART002532926)