60년대 강화 직물노조사건과 가톨릭 노동청년회(JOC)

Abstract

The labor movement of the Ganghwa textile factory in the 1960s, the period of industrialization, has several characteristics. In these times, Jeunesse Ouvrière Catholique (JOC) formed the trade union comprised of 1,200 workers in the SIMDO textile and the SANGHO textile through observation, judgment, practice in the embryonic civil society of Korea. There was a strong influence of Michael Bransfield, a pastor of the Catholic Church on Ganghwa, who taught workers' identity and rights to young female workers. Since the formation of the trade union, there had been the violent conflicts between labor and management such as repression, unfair dismissal, reinstatement, and pledge in workers' own blood. The employers in the Ganghwa 21 textile companies refused to hire catholics, which was recorded the first blacklisted laborer incident in Korea history. It led the Catholic Church in the cathedral jurisdiction of the Diocese of Incheon and the Catholic episcopate representing South Korea to declare a commitment to social issues. They supported Catholic workers and the JOC national headquarters through the statement presentation and international solidarity. Although the conflict between employers and employees increased because of the support of Catholic Church and the intervention of governmental authority such as the police, the union got the partial victory that the employers apologized in public and all the fired workers were reinstated. After watching the employers at the Simdo Textile fire its workers and witnessing working conditions, the Catholic Church worked to improve workers' rights. Ganghwa textile workers' movement shows the importance of solidarity between the Catholic Church and workers and it has a meaning to restore the memory and history of the fierce struggle of young female workers forgotten in the 1960s labor movements.