Text Fwd: Stop Repression against the Migrants Trade Union in South Korea!

* Text informed by Steve Zeltzer on Feb. 17, 2011

Union Book
Stop Repression against the Migrants Trade Union in South Korea!
Posted by Wol-san Liem
on February 17, 2011 at 10:24am

-The South Korean Immigration Service has cancelled MTU President Michel Catuira’s visa and ordered him to leave the country by March 7.
-This is yet the last in a long series of acts of repression against MTU!

Background

In 2009, Michel Catuira was elected president of the Seoul-Gyeonggi-Incheon Migrants Trade Union (MTU), a union established for and by migrant workers in South Korea. Since then, he has worked tirelessly to improve the working and living conditions of migrant workers in South Korean society. He has spoken out against restrictions placed on migrant workers’ freedom to change workplaces and other problems in Employment Permit System (EPS), which make migrant workers subservient to their employers. He has also fought for the repeal of the South Korean government’s policy of arrest, detention and deportation of undocumented migrant workers, which has led to countless injuries, deaths and other human rights abuses.

Because he has been a vocal critic of unjust policies, the South Korean government has made President Catuira the subject of an unfair investigation with the ultimate goal of making him deportable. The nature of the investigation, which began in July 2010, is as follows:

By law, President Catuira, a documented EPS Filipino migrant worker, must be employed in order to maintain his legal residence status. President Catuira was lawfully employed by D company in fulfillment of this requirement. In July 2010, however, the Ministry of Employment and Labor summoned him and his employer for questioning, raising suspicions about the validity of their employment relationship. Finding no legal problem, the center continued to pressure President Catuira through his employer by sending a notice to the employer telling him to file to have President Catuira transferred to a different company.

Pressure increased in the wake of MTU activities protesting the death of the Vietnamese migrant worker as the result of an immigration raid. On 23 November 2010, President Catuira received a summons from the Seoul Immigration Service telling him to appear before the Immigration Service’s investigation team to be questioned based on “suspicion of violations of the Immigration Control Law in the course of applying for a workplace transfer and with relation to actual performance of work duties at present.” Inquiry by a lawyer working with MTU revealed that the investigation team was also considering raising suspicions that President Catuira was conducting political activities in violation of the Immigration Control Law. On 2 December 2010, the Ministry of Employment and Labor sent a fax to President Catuira’s employer, notifying him that his permit to employ migrant workers had been cancelled. On 22 December 2010, President Catuira appeared before the Immigration Service investigation team, who question him for roughly 2.5 hours on the nature of his employment.

On 14 February 2011, the Immigration Service informed President Catuira through his lawyer that his visa had been cancelled as of 10 February 2011 at that he was required to leave the country by 7 March 2011. The grounds given for the cancellation of the visa are as follows: that the company where President Catuira was employed did not in exist; that President Catuira was not in fact working at the factory and that, therefore, he was in violation of Article 89.1 of the Immigration Control Act. Article 89.1 states that a visa can be cancelled if it is found to have been obtained in a deceitful or other unlawful manner.

Facts of the Case

Contrary to the Immigration Service’ claims, President Catuira went through all of the necessary legal procedures before being employed at D company. As required, President Catuira received a list of companies registered to hire migrant workers from a Ministry of Employment and Labor Job Center. D company was on this list. After being hired, President Catuira against followed the correct legal procedures, registering his employment status with the Ministry of Employment and Labor and the Immigration Service.

The claim that D company does not exist is also not true. D company had little work after President Catuira was hired, and thus had to shut is door temporarily. However, this cannot be said to be President Catuira’s fault. In fact, during the original investigation in July 2010, the Ministry of Employment and Labor found no violation of the law and could respond only with a memo suggesting that President Catuira move to another workplace. Nonetheless, the Immigration Service went out of its way to find grounds for cancelling President Catuira’s visa so as to make it possible to deport him.

The Ministry of Employment and Labor and Immigration Service’s investigations of President Catuira were carried out in a manner completely outside these agencies’ normal mode of operation. If the South Korean government routinely investigated the companies where migrant workers are employed in such detail, it would find widespread violations including unpaid wages, sexual harassment, failure to submit proper documents, etc. If such investigations were made, perhaps the situation of migrant workers in South Korea would actually improve. Instead of doing this sort of work, however, these government agencies have used their time to target MTU’s president.

Another act of Labor Repression

The investigation and cancellation of Catuira’s visa are nothing more than an attempt to attack MTU and stop its rightful union activities. This attempt is similar to past acts of repression against MTU, in which the South Korean government used the vulnerable immigration status of migrant officers to prevent their union activities, in particular through arrest and deportation. Since MTU was founded in 2005, the government has arrested 6 of its officers, supposedly for violations of Immigration Control Act. Of these 6, 5 were deported. In addition, the South Korean government has refused to recognize MTU’s status as a legal union, claiming that its founders, who were undocumented, do not have the right to freedom of association granted all workers under the South Korean Constitution.

The situation is so severe, that the ILO has issued several recommendations recognizing the arrest and deportation of MTU officers as acts of labor repression and suggesting that they be stopped immediately. The ILO has also affirmed the right of all migrant workers, regardless of visa status, to freedom of association and recommended that the South Korean government recognize MTU’s legal union status.

Our Demands
-Repeal the cancellation of Michel Catuira’s visa and guarantee his secure residence status!
-Stop repression against MTU officers and recognize MTU’s legal union status!