Industrial Warriors: South Korea's First Generation of Industrial Workers in Post-Developmental Korea

This study analyses the skills upgrading programmes of South Korea's first generation of skilled workers, focusing on their political and social trajectories from bulwarks of the developmental regimes up until 1987, to a "labour aristocracy" of regular workers employed mainly in large companies in heavy industries in South Korea. The term "labour aristocracy" highlights how the "regular workers", employed mostly in monopolistic large enterprises in heavy industries, have better wages, job security and other social benefits than "non-regular workers" and other regular workers employed in small and medium companies. It argues that these "Industrial Warriors" were the product of the Korean developmental state's creation of an egalitarian social contract, and that the political and social trajectories since then must be seen in its totality. This is necessary because it manifests the profound change in Korea's political economy from state-grassroots synergistic developmentalism to neoliberal industrial capitalism, wherein having a regular job has become a substantial asset in an era of non-regular employment. This study contributes to the literature on the political economy and to sociological discussion of the Korean developmental state that continues to this day and is far from over.