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= Dong-il Textile Labor Struggles = Dong-il Textile Labor Struggles (Korean: 동일방직 노동자 투쟁) is a struggle for democracy among female workers in the same division of the Korean Textile Workers' Union. It also called the "Dong-il Textile Incident (Korean: 동일방직 사건)” which is the first labor and human rights movement of women in the 1970s. Dong-il Textile is a textile company that represents Korea established in 1955, but the Dong-il Textile union is also a representative labor union representing the labor movement of the 1970s. The activities of the Dong-il Textile unions were the persistent and fierce struggle of female workers in the 1970s in a labor union environment that was suppressed under the Yushin regime of Park Chung-hee. The struggle for the Dong-il Textile, which has undergone ‘Naked Struggle’ (Korean: 알몸 투쟁) and ‘Human Feces Incidents,’ (Korean: 인분 사건) is considered the first labor and human rights movement of women who have had a great impact on Korean labor.

Development Dictatorship of Park Chung-hee
In Korea, the period when President Park Chung-hee took power can be called a development dictatorship. Development dictatorship is a system that greatly restricts political participation and justifies dictatorship on the grounds that political stability is indispensable for economic growth. The five-year economic development plan (Korean: 경제 개발 5개년 계획), led by the Park Chung-hee administration in the 1906s, is a combination of foreign loans and cheap labor, a feature centered on fostering light industries and exports. Among them, the exported-orientated industrialization strategy was the main goal in the early 1960s that led the nation's economy in the 1960s was the textile industry. Since then, Korea's textile industry has developed greatly, and as a result, textiles have become the country's main export item and heavily dependent industry.

However, the biggest characteristic of Park Chung-hee's economic development during this period is low wages and long hours of labor, which are sources of export competitiveness. The main reason why the Korean textile industry has been able to grow significantly in a short period of time is low wages. For Korea, which has no resources but manpower, the only way to produce and export products using cheap labor. South Korea's economy has developed outwardly with low-wage policies, but the lives of workers have not improved much. They worked overtime and overtime to make up for low wages and suffered from industrial accidents and occupational diseases. The outcry of Jeon Tae-il, a martyr who burned himself to death after suffering the devastation of young female workers at Cheonggyecheon's sheath factory, was to report this reality.

By suppressing the improvement of people's lives while the military regime supported monopoly capital accumulation, the mass struggle turned out to be a demand for the political system or democratization. The people were alienated in the process of monopoly capital-oriented accumulation and the public anger exposed to low wages, long hours of labor was condensed. Korea has achieved economic growth by escaping from absolute poverty during the period, but such economic growth has shown negative signs of all other social developments, including human rights, democracy, and social welfare.

The Urban Industrial Mission
With the support of the Urban Industrial Mission (MIT) (Korean: 도시산업선교회), the Dong-il Textile labor union steadily grew into a democratic union. MIT, that launched in 1957, began to help solve the field problems, realizing that spiritual salvation alone cannot solve the suffering of workers in the process of industrialization. The Incheon Urban Industrial Mission, in particular, had its pastors experience the labor scene for more than six months, with pastor Cho Hwa-soon (Korean: 조화순) being a pioneer. In 1966, she had a fake job at the Dong-il Textile factory where the percentage of female workers was overwhelming. Pastor Cho taught the workers that "I am also human" through small meetings. Afterward, female workers, who were overwhelmed by male workers despite the overwhelming number, began to find their fair share

Catholic Church
Myeongdong Cathedral (Korean: 명동대성당) was a sacred place for the human rights and democratization movement in the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1970s during the Yushin period (1972-1979), the Myeongdong Cathedral took center stage, causing sharp conflicts between church and state, which served as an essential catalyst for Korea's democratic movement and human rights movement. At that time, the Catholic Church joined the struggle to support and unite the Dong-il Textile workers. In 1987, the Dong-il Textile workers staged a hunger strike at Myeongdong Cathedral for 14 days.

The Labor Blacklist Incident
The labor blacklist (Korean: 블랙리스트) was created in the 1970s as a means to suppress democratic union movements. The fact that the Korea Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) (Korean: 중앙정보부) of the Park Chung-hee administration in 1978 (now National Intelligence Service (South Korea)) had created and managed the blacklist was discovered by a committee that 'Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Korean: 대한민국 진실·화해를위한과거사정리위원회)' under the presidential office in 2010. The first blacklist was managed by the KCIA to prevent the reemployment of 126 workers who were laid off by the Dong-il Textile company. According to the Korean Workers, there was a large number of the blacklists of union workers in the early 1980s of Wonpoong (Korean: 원풍), Dongil (Korean: 동일), Y.H., and Control Data.

History
Dong-il Textile (Korean: 동일방직) was a leading textile company in the 1970s with roots in the Incheon factory. The company had earlier formed a union in 1946, with the majority of its workers being women, but all of its former chairmen were men until 1972. Against this backdrop, in 1972, the Dong-il Textile workers (Korean: 동일방직 노동자) rejected a company-dominated union that had been moderately compromising with the company, and elected Ju Gil-JA, a first female worker in South Korea, as head of the branch. The company used various methods, including arbitrary dismissal of union leaders, buyback, resignation, and departmental movement, but was unable to disrupt the new union. The Dong-il Textile workers continued to struggle to defend the democratic union against managers who tried to destroy the democratic union by all means, including intimidation and assault against the union's executive and zealous members, moving departments and forcing them to resign.

The company or male workers wanted to retake the post of branch manager in early 1975 but were elected union chief Lee Young-sook. When another woman elected as the governor of a branch with a three-year term, the company and male workers held a majority in the annually elected representatives to pass a no-confidence motion against the women executive branch to replace. The Korea Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) (now National Intelligence Service (South Korea)) did not welcome the emergence of a democratic union outside the control of the cooperative the Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU) to the government. The KCIA tried to undermine the executive branch of Lee Young-sook by encouraging the company and male workers. On July 23, 1976, when Lee Young-sook was arrested at Incheon Dongbu Police Station, male workers supported by the company held a convention of representatives. In response, several female members of the Dong-il Textile union immediately launched a sit-in protest against the company's despicable behavior. On 1976, during the third day of sit-in protests, the members threw off their work clothes and protested naked, but the police arrested the female workers with clubs and fists.

Lee Young-sook, the second female head of the bureau, resigned on 1976, due to personal reasons and newly elected the executive branch. Since the third term executive branch of Yi Chong-gak was inaugurated in a new election, the KCIA closely monitored the movements of Lee Chong-gak, and the company launched an operation to withdraw from the union, focusing on male union members. The ongoing campaign to destroy labor unions culminated in the "Human Feces Incident" on the day the convention was scheduled in 1978. When union members were preparing to vote, male workers and female union workers, who had been at odds with the executive branch, rushed into the union office and threw and spread human feces into face, body, and clothes of female workers.

About 50 workers from the Dong-il Textile, immediately after the human feces incident, woke up when the Labor Day ceremony, held at Jangchung Arena (Korean: 장충체육관), was televised live nationwide on March 10, 1978, chanting slogans such as "We cannot live on shit" and "Resolve the problem of Dong-il Textile.” Many of them were arrested, but those who escaped arrest went to Myeongdong Cathedral to stage a hunger strike. Fourteen days after the hunger strike, they decided to return to the company on the intercession of Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou-hwan and others. However, the company laid off 124 workers for absence without leave when workers denied signing the memorandum de facto union withdrawal letter. Since then, the government and the FKTU have urged each workplace not to hire 124 laid-off workers who have been laid off from the Dong-il Textile by making a document titled "References on the Implementation of Work." It was the beginning of the so-called "blacklist." At that time, state authorities, including the CIA, forcibly dissolved labor unions established by female workers under the leadership of the company-dominated union, and unjustly created blacklists to prevent them from reemployment for an extended period. As a result, fired female workers could not get a job at other companies and lost their living almost completely.

Transitional Korean Performance / Madangguk
The case was produced in 1978 by laid-off workers in the Madangguk (Korean: 마당극), which is transitional Korean Performance, called  (Korean: 동일방직 문제 해결하라). Since the 1970s was a time when the press was suppressed, cases of unwarranted workers in the same position were socially covered up. The laid-off workers tried to let many people know of the unfairness they had gone through and chose the play in the most effective way. The primary focus of the audience is on exposing the social contradictions of the ruling class. The play assumes the working class as a real character and the ruling class as a negative group. The ruling class is criticizing their sense of falsehood and contradictions, using the satirical and comic methods of traditional Korean plays.

Documentary Movie
In 2006, the Women Video Group "WOM" and the committee for reinstatement of laid-off workers in the Dong-il Textile (Korean: 동일방직 해고노동자 복직추진 위원회) produced a documentary called "We Are Not Defeated (Korean: 우리들은 정의파다).” It deals with the history of struggle among female workers of the same position who elected the first female chapter head in Korea and started a democratic union. The film is the first documentary on the birth of a women's executive branch and a female executive who can no longer tolerate unfair reality and represents the interests of women. It also records female workers become the primary agents of their lives and history by reinterpreting the history of the women's labor movement in the 1970s from the experience and position of female workers at the time.

Recognition of Pro-democracy Activists / Winning for a State Compensation Suit
70 of the 124 workers who were laid off at the time were recognized as related to the pro-democracy movement after the "Committee on the Restoration and Compensation of Persons Related to Democratic Movement” (Korean: 민주화운동 관련자 명예회복 및 보상심의위원회) determined in 2001 that the Korea Central Intelligence Agency (KICA) (Korean: 중앙정보부) (now National Intelligence Service (South Korea)) ordered the management to dismiss 124 union members and put them on a "blacklist" to prevent them from reemployment . Later, they also filed a suit against the state for damages. The Constitutional Court of Korea ruled on December 14, 2018, in favor of the plaintiffs in 1978 in a retrial of the compensation suit filed against the Republic of Korea by victims of the crackdown on the Dong-il Textile labor in Incheon.