This paper revisits the rise of industrial unionism in Korea in the wake of the 1997 financial crisis at the turn of the twenty-first century. By closely investigating the reorganization of labour unionism in the context of neoliberalization, it challenges the alleged converging impact of neoliberal rhetoric or hegemony on industrial relations. To this end, this paper raises following substantive questions: How far did Korea’s industrial unionism advance under the new economic circumstances and how stable was it? More importantly, what were the fundamental factors behind such re-formation of labour unions? This paper finds that the transformation of labour unions in Korea is a mixture of the rise of industrial unionism and the persistence of enterprise unionism, that is to say a precarious progress of industrial unionism. It argues that behind the unstable development of industrial unionism in Korea were state-fostered legacy of power imbalance within labour in favour of enterprise unions, especially at chaebols, and continuing state intervention in the re-formation of labour unions in the neoliberal era. Finally, it argues that the seemingly sweeping neoliberal rhetoric or hegemony does not override the long-standing political-economic institutions of industrial relations and the leverage of the state, but it is filtered and reified by them.

中文翻译：

---

1997 年金融危机后重新审视韩国的工业工会主义：新自由主义言论、讨价还价（去中心化）和国家

本文回顾了 21 世纪之交的 1997 年金融危机之后韩国工业工会主义的兴起。通过仔细研究新自由主义背景下工会主义的重组，它挑战了所谓的新自由主义言论或霸权对劳资关系的影响。为此，本文提出了以下实质性问题：在新的经济形势下，韩国的产业工会运动推进了多少，稳定性如何？更重要的是，这种工会改革背后的根本因素是什么？本文认为，韩国工会的转型是产业工会主义的兴起和企业工会主义的持续存在的混合体，即产业工会主义的不稳定进展。文章认为，韩国产业工会主义发展不稳定的背后是国家助长的劳动力内部权力不平衡的遗产，有利于企业工会，尤其是财阀，以及新自由主义时代国家对工会改革的持续干预。最后，它认为，看似广泛的新自由主义言论或霸权并没有超越长期存在的劳资关系政治经济制度和国家的影响力，而是被它们过滤和具体化。