[Column] How to get things done

Lee Ha-kyung

The author is a senior columnist and vice president of the JoongAng Ilbo.

It would be a gamble to push ahead with a number of challenging reforms at one time. Protests would face backlash from everywhere. Still, President Yoon Suk Yeol has geared up on reforms in labor, education and pensions at the same time. He is also seeking to solve the sticking point with Japan over the wartime forced labor compensation issue. All of them are unpopular tasks deferred by his predecessors. If President Yoon succeeds in the reforms, Korea could leap to a genuinely advanced rank. If so, the reforms will be a revolution.

The first test for a fearless leader with no connections with the establishment is labor reform. The crusade has jobs, economy and human dignity at stake. “Getting different salary for the same job must not happen in a modern civilization. The labor reform should be aimed to correct the exploitative structure,” said the president to set the direction for the reform. He is starting a war with the union elites who have long forgotten its cause to stand up for the underprivileged.

As a prosecutor in the Gwangju district office, Yoon investigated irregularities of the union of Kia Motors (now Kia Corp). “The union office was better than the prosecutors’ office building. Permanent workers worked leisurely and merely pressed buttons, while all the hard work went to contract workers. The head prosecutor was fearful of President Roh Moo-hyun (who used to be a human and labor rights lawyer). But the president encouraged us to act on our conviction. He praised us when we finished the probe and allowed the entire investigation team to choose our preferred locations to work next,” according to the episode Yoon shared with his friends.

Roh had been arrested for helping the union of Daewoo Shipbuilding & Maritime Engineering. But he was different as the chief of the state. Yoon may have remembered Roh’s words when he decided to push for the labor reform. With President Yoon at the command, the police have turned stronger against illegalities of the combative union.

Yoon also embarked on education reform. During a cabinet meeting in June last year, he pointed to the abnormal tradition of the Ministry of Education sending a secretary general to each state-run university to oversee its university president. President Yoon threatened to shut down the education ministry if it does not scrap the tradition.

As a result, 27 comfortable positions in the ministry vanished. As a nominee to head the education ministry, Lee Ju-ho was coaxed by lawmakers who offered to go easy on him in a confirmation hearing if he brings back the outdated dispatch system.

President Yoon Suk Yeol speaks to 200 young people about the need for labor, education and pension reforms at the guest house in the Blue House, Dec. 20. [PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE]

The Yoon administration is exploring a practical solution to the compensation issue over Japanese wartime forced labor — which dealt a critical blow to the bilateral relations — in defiance of high political risks involved. Prime Minister Han Duck-soo has told me that U.S. ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel had promised to work towards persuading Tokyo to accept Seoul’s compromise proposal.

But none of the reform work is possible without help from a majority party, as a revision to the law must pass through the legislature after reaching a public consensus. In “The Prince,” Machiavelli brands Girolamo Savonarola, an Italian Dominican priest and leader of Florence, as the “unarmed prophet,” whose political mission would end in disaster because he did not have the backing of an army of armed followers. The army for a leader in democracy today is unity and law. Whether Yoon likes it or not, he must listen to the voice of the opposition which represents more than half the voters — and compromise. Time for power is ephemeral. When the power weakens, the fawners would jump ship. They are not worth to keep, as they merely chase their own interest. Like Peter did to Jesus, they would disown and deny their association with their leader at least three times. Former president Kim Young-sam who had sent two presidents to prison during his term told his son that he was worried that he no longer had powers when his son was summoned to the prosecution towards the end of his term. The ashes of former president Chun Doo Hwan still remain at his house. The final chapter of a mighty president was always pitifully unfortunate.

All leaders would envy Alexander the Great who was able to cut the Gordian knot. The emperor was also a thinking man. A student of Aristotle, Alexander read Homer’s Iliad many times. It was how the great king was able to reach out to other races and contribute to the birth of the Hellenistic period when he built an empire stretching from Greece to India. Yoon, a man of resolve, also should be a thinking leader.

The conservative president must throw away all the blinds covering his ears and eyes. He must seek out his opponents and critics. He needs to engage the perspectives and energy of the opposing world. A ship needs any wind, even headwind, to sail forward. The president must become an “armed prophet” to see through the revolutionary reforms and retire as a successful leader.