North Korean Workers Stage Massive Riot in China Over Unpaid Wages

The workers are making a bag at the Pyongyang Bag Factory in Chungsong-dong, Rangrang-guyok, Pyongyang, North Korea. Korean-American journalist Jin Cheon Kyu took this photo during his visit to North Korea in 2017.

Claims have emerged that a recent strike and riot by approximately 2,000 North Korean workers dispatched to Jilin Province, China, in protest of wage non-payment by North Korean authorities, symbolizes the loss of control over its citizens by the North Korean regime.

Researcher Min Ji Tak, from the Planning and Coordination Office of the Unification Research Institute, made this claim in a report titled Implications of the Collective Strike of North Korean Overseas Workers in Jilin Province, China: The Crisis of Overseas Slave Labor published on the 20th.

The Yomiuri Shimbun in Japan recently reported that over 2,000 workers dispatched by a trading company under the North Korean Ministry of National Defense occupied facilities such as clothing factories and seafood processing plants in Jilin Province and went on strike for four days starting November 11th. According to the media, one person died during the hostage drama staged by the workers in response to long-term wage arrears. The situation was temporarily resolved when the North Korean authorities dispatched State Security Department agents and repatriated about 100 leaders.

According to Researcher Tak, North Korean authorities collect 70-90% of the wages paid to overseas workers by local companies under the guise of national plans and operating costs for North Korean companies. To prevent workers from defecting, they control their daily lives, seize their passports and other identification documents, and prohibit contact with the outside world.

The direct cause of the North Korean workers’ strike in Jilin Province was the wage non-payment by North Korean authorities that had been taking place for several years. The North Korean company had been deferring the payment of wages received from the Chinese side to the workers for several years, using the COVID-19 situation as an excuse. Still, when it was revealed that they had remitted the money to their home country as war preparation funds, the workers’ anger exploded.

Researcher Tak stated about this incident, “The patience of the residents against the brutal human rights abuses by the North Korean authorities has reached a breaking point,” and added, “It is extremely shocking that thousands of workers participated in the strike in a North Korean society where freedom of assembly and protest is suppressed. This could be interpreted as beginning a North Korean version of the labor movement.”

In addition, she stated, “Major North Korean media outlets such as the Rodong Sinmun and the Korean Central News Agency appear to have not reported on the incident at all, presumably to prevent the ripple effects on the residents.”

Researcher Tak pointed out that the group strike in Jilin Province is noteworthy because ▲it was a group rebellion, not an individual one, and ▲the workers directly demanded the North Korean authorities take responsibility for the losses they suffered.

Researcher Tak said, “The group strike in Jilin Province has significant peculiarities compared to the usual deviant behavior and resistance of residents in North Korean society and the subsequent containment by the North Korean authorities,” and added, “The North Korean authorities showed a significant loss of control over the massive resistance, which does not match the brutal exploitation and human rights abuses they usually inflict on overseas workers. Despite committing a serious crime by North Korean standards that would not even allow dreaming of rallies and protests, the North Korean authorities only managed to select about 200 people and repatriate only about half of them, which is about 5% of the total strikers.”

About this, Researcher Tak argued, “Practical considerations may have played a part, as it could be difficult to completely silence all over 2,000 workers if they were all repatriated, but this strike could also be seen as one of the representative examples showing the loss of control over the residents by the North Korean regime.”

She stated, “North Korea has been facing the unstoppable spread of Hallyu (Korean Wave) and ideological looseness among its residents in recent years,” and added, “The recent extreme behavior of declaring the severance of relations with South Korea and announcing a constitutional amendment reveals the North Korean regime’s obsession to control even the consciousness of the residents completely, but this paradoxically suggests that the necessity of strengthening the control over the people, which is the internal fissures that cannot be resolved with the existing control, is growing.”