The reason why the flame of Ulsan, the ‘miracle industrial capital’, is fading

Ulsan dystopia, the unstable future of a manufacturing powerhouse/Yang Seung-hoon/Bookie/19,800 won

This is a book that diagnoses the future and sustainability of Ulsan, a representative industrial city located on the southeast coast of the Korean Peninsula. Through this, we look into the nature and challenges of the crisis facing the Korean economy, which has grown with manufacturing and exports as its pillars.

Therefore, this book is a comprehensive report on Ulsan, including industrial structure, labor market, and social relations, and is a reflection on the reality of manufacturing, which is dismissed as a ‘decaying industry’ in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and the future of Korea, which has lost its growth engine.

When we think of Ulsan, we often think of it as a city that started with the designation of the Ulsan Industrial District in 1962 and developed through heavy and chemical industrialization in the 1970s. However, it was during the Japanese colonial period that Ulsan sprouted as an industrial city. At the time, it was designed as an important ‘logistics base’, including oil storage, for Japan’s Pacific War. However, when Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945, the construction of the logistics base was halted at the 70% completion stage. This also affected Ulsan’s path, and the Park Chung-hee regime, which accelerated economic development after coming to power through the May 16 coup, designated Ulsan as an industrial zone. After Hyundai Motor Company and Hyundai Heavy Industries entered Ulsan, the current ‘three major industries’ (automotive, shipbuilding, and petrochemical) were firmly established. While Korea went from one of the world’s poorest countries to a ’30-50 club country’ boasting one of the top 10 trade volume (gross domestic product per capita of $30,000, population of 50 million) in just 60 years after industrialization, Ulsan is the most developed industrial city in East Asia. has grown into one of the

The author describes Ulsan’s history as a ‘miracle’ in which coincidence and inevitability overlap, supported by the efforts of everyone, including bureaucrats, capitalists, and workers. However, like other regions, Ulsan has long lost its vitality as an industrial city due to a sharp decline in youth employment. What is particularly noteworthy is that the book cites deep-rooted distrust and conflict between labor and management as one of the causes. This is not unrelated to the fact that the ‘Productivity Alliance’ between businessmen, bureaucrats, engineers, workers, and local residents, which served as the driving force behind ‘Miracle Ulsan’, collapsed in the late 1980s. For example, large manufacturing companies such as Hyundai Motor Company introduced modularization and automation of the manufacturing process to maintain production and productivity even during frequent strikes and various disputes due to hostile labor-management relations, creating a system that does not depend on workers’ skills. In addition, collusive labor-management relations were formed. Through this collusion, unions at large corporations in Ulsan gained high wages, benefits, and job security, but lost new employment for future children (youth) generations. The company reduced disputes, but began to exclude workers from being partners in improving productivity. Meanwhile, Ulsan’s self-portrait as a working-middle-class city also became distorted. Is it only Ulsan? This is why the central and local governments, big capital, and labor unions must recognize that this is an era in which no one can lead the way unilaterally and put their heads together and join hands.

Senior Reporter Lee Kang-eun [email protected]

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