Born in Daegu on Aug. 26, 1948 into a poor family, Chun spent his early days moving from one slum to another trying to eke out a living in the mean streets of an unfamiliar city. At times, he made his living selling newspapers and gum, polishing shoes or helping street vendors push their heavy carts around the city. In this manner he barely managed to scrape along at the bottom rungs of society, finally coming to work at Pyeonghwa Market as a cloth cutter, where he witnessed first hand how the hard life of manual labor slowly gnaws away the youth, health and soul of those that are forced to live it. In a dusty sweatshop too cramped for workers to even stretch their backs, young girls were forced to work 16-hour shifts like machines and never once saw daylight.

It was in this pit, among the dark and hopeless eyes of the young girls working there with him, trembling with rage, that Chun decided to make a stand. He gathered his fellow workers, demanding increased wages, shorter working hours, health check-ups for the workers, and an end to being locked away in the attic. These demands were what he said was needed to achieve a minimum standard of living. But defeated at every turn by violence from the employers with the police at their side and indifference from politicians, Chun in the end set himself ablaze, bringing an end to his young life at the age of 22.

A picture with colleagues at the Pyeonghwa Market. (Chun Tae-il is at far right)

His death was like bombshell that blew open the hearts of a divided country crushed under the suffocating weight of oppression, and stirred up workers to break the long silence of the labor movement. The vision of Chun, who knew neither submission nor defeat, being consumed in flames inspired a spirit of self-sacrifice in the movement, and became a source of unending courage for workers to rise up and fight against oppression throughout the 70s and 80’s.

Chun Tae-il Street takes shape in the place of Cheonggye6-ga. The highlighted area is the spot where Chun Tae-il died by self-immolation.

He was an elementary school dropout from a family scattered about the country due to abject poverty and domestic violence. In the fall of 1965, after seeing a help-wanted ad from a sweat shop, he became a worker at the Pyeonghwa Market, bringing his wandering life to an end. His plan was to learn a trade and then support his mother and his father, but before he could see this dream realize, he was awoke to the hell of conditions in the market. Chun Tae-il believed that in their daily toil the woman laborers were gradually losing their souls, health and youth. In the last months of 1966 Chun moved up one rung, to the position of cloth cutter, from where he took pity on the young woman laborers, helping them out whenever he could. Many stories are still told today about the depth of his compassion. Many times he used the little money that he had to buy bread to give to a starving young woman, leaving him with no way to get back to home except walking the two or three hours from Cheonggye all the way to the foot of Mt.Dobong. Even during his intense labor his books were never more than an arm’s length away. While working one day, one of the young women started coughing and throwing up blood. She was seen by a physician and, diagnosed with third-stage tuberculosis, was fired on the spot. That incident was particularly shocking for Chun Tae-il.

In 1968, upon learning from his father that there was a Labor Standard Law, Chun Tae-il bought a book that explained the legislation and studied it thoroughly, reading it over and over again. He started making preparations for a meeting of cloth cutters, with the aim of improving working conditions. But news quickly made its way to management and he was blacklisted and could no longer find work in the trade. Instead, he wandered from construction site to construction site in search of temporary jobs.

In 1970, returning to Pyeonghwa Market to investigate the situation, he took it on himself to file a petition with the Labor Department. He never heard back. Chun somehow managed to meet a journalist with whom he shared the stories of the plight of workers, and in this way the world finally learned the truth about the market. When the story became public, it led to a lot of talk and big promises from politicians and employers to get to the bottom of the situation and make fundamental changes. But not a single one was kept. That was when Chun made plans for a demonstration in front of the Department of Labor, but the director of Pyeonghwa market, promising changes, persuaded Chun to postpone the protest again and again.

On Nov. 13, he decided to stage a burning of what he considered to be a meaningless Labor Standard Law. At 1 o’clock on that day, combat police surrounded the entire market and employers prevented their employees from leaving to take part in the demonstration. At this point, Chun Tae-il emerged, his body already wet with gasoline. He turned to a friend and asked for a match. A moment later, with his body aflame, he ran along the street in front of Pyeonghwa Market screaming, “Obey the labor laws! We are not machines,” before collapsing and being consumed by the flames. Members of his group ran to his side and struggled to put out the flames. Amazingly, at that moment he rose to his feet one last time and shouted, “Do not let my death be in vain.”

(englishnews@chosun.com )