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MTU recently started a new agit-prop campaign (*) against the latest/ongoing massive wave of crackdown, initiated by the S.K. gov't, against un-documented migrant workers in general and the MTU and its activists in particular. The campaign is - of course - also aiming on organizing migrant workers in S.K. in the MTU... Here's MTU's campaign leaflet, released today:

Migrant Workers Unionize!

The Seoul-Gyeonggi-Incheon Migrants Trade Union (MTU), an affiliate of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, was founded as a union for and by migrant workers on 24 April 2005. Since its founding, MTU has been struggling to protect the labor rights of both documented and undocumented migrant workers. MTU has been has been one of the strongest voices calling for revision of the problematic laws governing documented migrant workers, such as restriction on transfer of workplaces and annually renewed contracts. It has also been fighting to secure the 3 basic labor rights of undocumented migrant workers and to stop the human-hunting crackdown against undocumented migrants.

MTU’s Legal Battle

The Ministry of Labor has denied MTU’s legal union status on the basis that MTU’s founders are undocumented migrant workers who it says do not have the same rights afforded workers in the South Korean Constitution and the Trade Union Law.

 
This claim was rejected by the Seoul High Court on 1 February 2007, which ruled in favor of MTU. The High Court stating that undocumented migrants who have entered into employment relations should be seen as workers under the Constitution and Trade Union Law, and therefore are entitled to freedom of association. It also stated that while the Immigration Control Law prohibits the act of employing foreigners without residence status, it does not have jurisdiction over their rights as workers once they have entered into relationships of employment.
  
Despite the High Court decision, the Ministry of Labor is still refusing to acknowledge MTU’s legal union status and has appeal the decision to the Supreme Court. The new conservative president Lee Myeong-bak has also stated he will not tolerate MTU and has created a wider situation of repression against migrant workers. MTU’s needs the support of unions around the world to assure it will gain the legal recognition it deserves!

International Law and Undocumented Migrant Workers’ Right to Freedom of Association

Under the South Korean Constitution, international conventions ratified by the ROK have the same force as domestic law. South Korea has signed the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). All of these conventions protect the right to freedom of association of all workers regardless of social status. In particular, CERD General Recommendation No. 30(2004) states that “guarantees against racial discrimination apply to non-citizens regardless of their immigration status” (paragraph 7) and that “while States parties may refuse to offer jobs to non-citizens without a work permit, all individuals are entitled to the enjoyment of labor and employment rights, including the freedom of assembly and association, once an employment relationship has been initiated until it is terminated” (paragraph 32).
 

What is more, ILO Convention No. 87 (Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize) protects the right to freedom of association for all workers, “without distinction whatsoever” and has been shown to apply to undocumented migrant workers through Committee on Freedom of Association recommendations (UGT, 2001 and AFL-CIO/CTM, 2002).

 
MTU’s case is not just about the rights of migrant workers in South Korea. By winning legal recognition, MTU will be setting a real precedent for the right to freedom of association of undocumented migrant workers around the world, bringing to life the principles set out in international labor and human rights law. 

Repression against MTU: Targeted Crackdown

Since even before MTU was founded, the government has used a tactic of targeted arrest and deportation of leaders of the migrant workers movement as a way to weaken their unionizing. MTU’s first president was arrested in the middle of the night shortly after the union was founded, and kept in a detention center for close to a year before finally being release for medical reasons.
 

On 27 2007 November the President, Vice President and General Secretary of MTU were all arrested at the same time in separate locations in Seoul by multiple immigration officers who had lay in waiting hidden near their homes or workplace. They were deported in the middle of the night on December 13 despite the fact that a National Human Rights Commission investigation concerning their arrests was still underway.

 
Only 5 months later the newly elected MTU President and Vice President were arrested, detained and deported in the exact same matter. Despite a decision of the National Human Rights Commission on 15 May calling for a stay of detention until its investigation of the arrests was completed, the two men were taken from their cells that day and transported to Incheon Airport before their lawyers were notified and deported at roughly 9:30 that evening. These targeted arrests are clearly abuses of the authority to detain and deport undocumented migrant workers under the Immigration Control Law and acts of labor repression...

* incl. the Int'l Signature Campaign: