Welcome to BASE21

Q: Please explain the background of the first Seoul Labor Media Conference in 1997.
A: I think that in the past four conferences (two International Labor Media Conference and two Internal Labor Media Conference), labor activists including me and gradually understood the correct meaning of labor media. But it is still very hard for workers to understand It is very important to understand media technology. The video and internet broad casting on the Daewoo workers struggle early this year had a large effect on the minds of workers. They can easily understand internet media issues through these experiences.
Internet infra-structure in Korea first developed in the middle of the 1990s. There were very few groups related to ICTs and social movements. In 1996 and 1997, because of the IMF crisis and government oppression against workers encapsulated by the retrogressive revision of the Labor Law, large general rallies of workers were held. During this period, some media activists reported this struggle on the internet and people all over the world saw the situation. Their reporting was a splendid case of local and international solidarity using media technology. Workers and activists wanted to share their experience and results, and upgrade their activities, so the first Labor Media Conference was proposed. We learned much from international workers and activities who participated in the first conference.

Q: I know that Korean Labor Net was established as a result of the first conference.
A: Yes, that's right. The meeting with the activists from English and American Labor Net gave us a critical mind to establish Korean Labor Net. But, at that time we were not ready to begin immediately. We launched Korean Labor Net during the week of 98 Labor Media Conference after one year's preparation. The Korean Progressive Network (Jinbonet) is another important result of the first conference. Many social groups wanted to create a media center and this desire was a strong influence on establishing Jinbonet.

Q: What are the main activities of Korean Labor Net?
A: Many labor groups including KCTU (Korean Confederation of Trade Unions) are now working in collaboration with Korean Labor Net. Many unions are members of our organization. Research institutes, web-cast organizations, culture and media groups are also working with us.
These days, censorship, CCTV surveillance on the work place and domain name issues are very serious problems for Korean workers. We have tried to fight for these issue and invoke a strong response against the government's policies which are oppressing laborers. Korean Labor Net has done its best to provide technical support and training.
Online demonstrations, Urgent strikes of web-sites, and online signatures are very good examples of how to use the internet as workers' struggle arms. Now the workers needs systematically to build a data base for their precious documents and materials.

Q: This year, I know that Korean Labor Net will establish a common streaming server for Korean labor. Please, tell me about this plan.
A: For several years, the infra-structure of the internet in Korea has been developing rapidly. Laborers can access the web very easily because most people now use high-speed access and broadband internet lines. We saw the impact of this development from the video and web-casting about the Daewoo Workers Struggle. Many unionists and activists supporting the Daewoo struggle filmed their fierce fighting and uploaded it on the web as Real Audio or Window Media files.
Now, many union have their own digital camcorder. But these files are very large and need a special server computer, called "Streaming Server," to broadcast it on the web. It is high-expensive, so is very hard each group or union to equip it by themselves.
So Korean Labor Net has persevered in its efforts to establish Media Center for web-casting. And now, we received help from the common investments of many labor groups. There are two streaming servers. One is based on LINUX and the other is Windows NT. It will play an important role to support workers struggles. We are going to prepare a training programme for workers and activists to use them.

Q: What difficulties do you face in the Korean labor movement situation?
A: Recently, there has been a big problem with unions themselves. Movements for establishing democratic unions have been continuing for about ten years. However we saw that many unions became bureaucratic not democratic. People can see these aspects in the management of public bulletin board system on the internet. Korea has a very particular culture of BBS that is different from other nations. Many boards of unions or groups have tried to censor the opinions of rank and files. Moreover, they often closed bulletin boards or deleted some contents compulsively. We think the internet is the most free space to express workers' opinion, so censoring, or deleting are not fair. These non-democratic aspects of central unionists must be eradicated. Korean Labor Net will discuss this problem in workshops at this year's Labor Media Conference. The internet should be a place to express people's thoughts freely and democratically.
And the other difficulty is the language problem in the activities of international solidarity. Because of the linguistic obstacle (we have to use english) and scarcity of international activist, we can not usually communicate with international groups and activists.

Q: What do you hope will be the most important fruit of this conference?
A: We need frame work to communicate with international groups and people. On numerous occasions, participants have discussed the foundation of a Global Labor Net (International Labor Net). But it has not been founded yet. So, I hope that this Global Labor Net will be established at this conference. Maybe it can support international workers' struggle more powerfully. So, there will be a place to debate this subject.