By Sukjong Hong

Korean Workers Unite! Interview with Elizabeth Koo, Community Organizer for the Korean Workers Project at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund’s (AALDEF) New Jersey-Asian American Legal Project (NJ-AALP).

We first met Elizabeth Koo last October when she volunteered as a legal observer at the rally for Kiryung Electronics women workers who came all the way from Korea to New York to call for a meeting with Sirius Satellite Inc. Elizabeth told us that the Korean Workers Project had relaunched in August 2007. I was very excited to learn more about this project and her work as Community Organizer, and in this interview she told us about how she got connected to the project, the work conditions that many low-income Korean workers face, the challenges of organizing, and, of course, the joys.

SJ: How did you get connected to AALDEF?

Elizabeth: I started getting involved with AALDEF as an intern in college because I was thinking about a career in law. I worked with Alex Saingchin who coordinates the New Jersey- Asian American Legal Project (NJ-AALP) at AALDEF and I assisted closely with AALDEF’s efforts in combating workplace violations of Korean workers. That interest in law developed into an interest in community organizing.

SJ: Why did you choose to take on this position as Community Organizer for the Korean Workers Project?

Elizabeth: People use the phrase ‘community organizing’ to mean many different things. But to be able to better understand what it truly is and see how it can effectively improve people’s lives has been very exciting. I really like this position because there is a great need to offer support to Korean workers, and because I was excited to continue working on the NJ-AALP. With my Korean language ability, I can work more closely with the workers. Therefore, working at AALDEF made sense to me because there are so many labor issues related to language barriers and so much of NJ-AALP’s work is about language access issues.

SJ: Tell us a little bit about yourself. Also, I’m curious – how did you come to build or maintain your Korean language ability to be a bilingual resource for this project?

Elizabeth: I grew up in Queens, in Woodside, and my parents also work in Woodside. I moved to Long Island in high school, went to the city for college, and now I’m back in Woodside, so it’s like I went full circle.

When I was a child, my parents wanted me to go to Korean language school. So I went up until high school and then I took a few language classes in college. A lot of the legal terminology I learned here at AALDEF. Steve Choi, a former AALDEF staff attorney, passed along a lot of the materials, and there was an overlap where he was able to answer questions. I also worked with him when I was an intern.

SJ: What sparked the formation of the Korean Workers Project?

Elizabeth: Steve Choi started the first Korean Workers Project through a Skadden Fellowship. This project was based in New York. He recognized the need for Korean immigrants to be able to go to an organization or group for assistance with workplace violations.

SJ: Does it differ now from the previous goals or focus of the Korean Worker Project?

Elizabeth: The goals of the project then and now are very similar, but the approach is different. In the past, the project mainly provided legal representation to Korean workers. Now the focus is really on organizing and community development. Organizing Korean workers was always essential to the work. But I came on board with more flexibility and creative space to do community organizing work.

SJ: Besides providing legal services, what are the main organizing and outreach goals of the project?

Elizabeth: We have four approaches to improving working conditions for Korean workers. The goal of our organizing activities is to enable Korean workers to improve their working conditions and lead the struggle for economic justice. This could involve developing a campaign for groups of workers and empowering them to fight for their rightful wages and better working conditions, which involves doing research, meeting with the coworkers, to see if there is a spark where employees want to come forward to fight against abusive working conditions, and build unity among them.

The second is community education – we try to do at least one outreach event or workshop a month in order to reach out to the community and inform workers and the community as a whole about basic labor rights in NJ. Third, for those workers whose cases we cannot take, we offer and facilitate legal referrals to attorneys and legal service providers. And last, we also do coalition-building by reaching out to community groups and leaders, the people or groups who have been in the area for a while, who know what the New Jersey Korean community is like, in order to build support for Korean workers.

SJ: As the project description states, this is the only project in the Northeast that specifically organizes low-income workers of Korean descent. Why is it important that a project like this exist?

Elizabeth: Before coming to us, some workers reached out to private attorneys but the fees were too high. Or maybe they saw an AALDEF brochure. Or they have a hunch and want to know or talk more about a potential claim.

Recently we went to a Korean community needs assessment, conducted by the Beautiful Foundation (in Korean: 아름다운 재단). Their findings showed that Korean American leaders and community groups thought the most important issue was free legal services and advocacy. However, within New Jersey, there are not many groups that assist Korean workers with labor issues except for AALDEF. Because AALDEF works actively with Asian-American communities, we know there are many unlawful violations going in within them. We serve as a resource to Korean workers.

SJ: Are there any common conditions that the Korean workers you are organizing face?

Elizabeth: Most of our calls are from workers suffering from wage and hour violations. People are not getting paid the basic minimum wage. They never get paid overtime. Some work long hours under hazardous conditions, like in restaurants. For others who work in dry cleaners, they work all day and there are no chairs available in the store. There are many really serious, unlawful violations. With the economic conditions now, what we’re seeing more of is that some people are not getting paid at all, that the employers are justifying non-payment with the current crisis.

SJ: Is there any connection between their work conditions and their immigration status?

Elizabeth: When people call, one of the first things they ask involves their immigration status. They’re afraid to come forward because of it. Employers think that because their workers are undocumented they can threaten them with calling the immigration authorities, in order to constantly instill fear in these workers. This is where community education is important, to let workers know that they are entitled to basic labor rights regardless of their immigration status.

At the same time there are also workers past the age of 60, who have been here ten, twenty years. When they call, it’s not the first time they have been experiencing these conditions, but the first time they decided to address them. There are also a few construction workers that AALDEF works with, who were born in Korea and grew up in China, for whom Korean isn’t their strongest language. So language barriers become a great issue. For them, the issue of unpaid wages is particularly serious. This industry is problematic because the site where you work is not your employer’s. Your employer might not even be working out of an office. So it’s hard to contact them to demand your wages.

SJ: Can you tell me in detail about any of the work that you are currently undertaking now?

Elizabeth: In our economic justice project, we help workers win their claims- filing a claim with the Department of Labor, as well as refer them to legal services of New Jersey. We help facilitate these referrals by providing language assistance. With organizing, we are in the process of developing campaigns in NJ. I start off with a lot of one-on-one conversations with workers who call. Then I try to talk to this worker’s co-workers and open it up. Through this process, we hope the workers will reach the point where they will want to challenge their employer’s illegal practices together. We really want to empower the workers in this way.

Right now we are also developing a survey to understand the demographics of Korean workers better. Where are they? What are the problematic industries? Etc. We have census data from 2000, but we need to know more specifics about our community.

SJ: What are the main challenges of doing this work? What has surprised you about the process and work so far?

Elizabeth: It’s hard to talk to people about organizing. It takes time for folks to get comfortable with challenging these issues on their own—even with our assistance. Second, it requires a lot of time and patience to get campaigns going. For example, when workers and I make appointments to meet with coworkers right after the store closes, we go and find out he/she left early. Third, it’s important to be sensitive to where people are coming from, like immigration status. There is lots of media work involved, like making speeches and being at press conferences. It’s hard for undocumented workers to come forward, so it is important to build these relationships on trust. It’s about being honest with them – to acknowledge that there are risks to organizing. It doesn’t help to sugarcoat things.

SJ: How do the Korean workers you meet generally perceive organizing ?

Elizabeth: Many workers call us looking for legal assistance. When we talk with them about organizing, some workers are not interested or have no capacity to engage in the activities involved in organizing. Or we meet workers who are born leaders, who are waiting for this very opportunity and are looking for support. These workers are willing to meet with their co-workers every night, to think about strategies, and are really excited. In the middle are folks who are not against it, or who need more time. No one among the workers has reacted super-negatively. It’s the employers who ask, “Why are you causing trouble within the Korean American community?” They like to intimidate employees with this kind of comment too, adding on to threats about their immigration status. These employers are flat-out misinformed.

SJ: Have you thought about or done education that specifically outreach to employers?

Elizabeth: Sometimes we think, “Well, in order to really get to the root of the problem, we should directly engage employers somehow.” But it’s hard to put resources into educating this population. Once an employer, a nail salon owner, attended a Know Your Rights training, and I think they were confused about what population was going to be there. It did create an awkward situation because the audience was all workers. But a worker did turn to them and say, “You should learn this!”

SJ: Speaking of outreach, I know that in terms of effectiveness it seems critical to be able to work with Korean churches. What is your experience in outreaching to them?

Elizabeth: It’s been hard. That’s another big challenge. It would be great if churches were on board, and it would be a great way to reach out to Korean workers. But they’re hesitant to talk about it at church. Especially when prominent leaders in church are also the unlawful employers, they don’t seem willing to take on these issues.

SJ: How does the project address issues in workplaces where Korean workers labor alongside other ethnic groups, like Latino workers?

Elizabeth: We approach the situation with the goal to talk to all the co-workers at a site, in order to make an assessment. So if we need to speak to Spanish speakers, we recruit a translator or encourage workers who are English-Spanish bilingual to help us talk to other coworkers. Our goal of empowering Korean workers is only furthered by engaging their non-Korean colleagues.

SJ: What about larger global labor or migration issues? Do the immigrant Korean workers compare labor conditions here and in Korea?

Elizabeth: Yes, workers who recently immigrated from Korea do compare their conditions. Sometimes it is worse here, and they say that in Korea, if you worked in a dry cleaners, you got one day off a month. Here you don’t get that. In Korea, you could get a few hours off to see a doctor. But not here. Sometimes there are workers who also say that they came here for better work conditions. It’s also difficult because of the tight-knit nature of the community or an industry, so there are people who are afraid to come forward out of fear of being black-listed. For example, there was a chef who was treated very poorly and harassed, not paid for his last week. He can’t bring this claim because all the restaurant owners know each other through their business association. He said, “They’ll taint me, my name,” and so he won’t pursue a claim in order to get a job in the same industry.

SJ: On a more personal level, how has it been for you to build relationships with Korean low-income workers in terms of how they perceive you or the way you approach them?

Elizabeth: It’s been really exciting to work with people coming from different perspectives. For example, last night I met with a group of restaurant workers whowant to talk to all of their co-workers about their rights, and discussed holding a workshop at the restaurant for all 4 branches of one restaurant. On the flipside, sometimes it’s hard when workers just want their unpaid wages but not use their name in the campaign or litigation--which is impossible. And sometimes workers ask me, “How old are you? When did you get out of college?” Sometimes I get the feeling that they’re thinking, “You’re not an attorney. How can you help me?” But I really want to stress the importance of how community organizing is another effective way to fight against your employer in addition to litigation.. With attorneys, there is also that power dynamic, where people might get dependent on the lawyer. But in organizing, power comes from the workers themselves.

SJ: Are there any upcoming projects or work that you would like support on?

Elizabeth: We could use support in many ways. Especially with our big survey project, we need help to reach out to workers. We also want to create a supplemental report as a community education tool, to present to elected officials, and to show how organizing works.

For more information on the Korean Workers Project, or if you are a Korean worker in New Jersey who wants to ask about a workplace violation, please contact Elizabeth Koo at ekoo@aaldef.org/ NJ tel: 888-406-1555 ext. 4/ NY tel: 212-966-5932 ext. 215.

About Nodutdol eNews

Nodutdol eNews is the monthly e-mail newsletter of Nodutdol.Through grassroots organization and community development, Nodutdol seeks to bridge divisions created by war, nation, gender, sexual orientation, language, classes and generation among Koreans and to empower our community to address the injustice we and other people of color face here and abroad. Nodutdol works in collaboration with other progressive organizations locally, nationally and internationally as part of a larger movement for peace and social change.

View the complete archives of Nodutdol eNews »