Morgan Stanley Visits DLP

“We do not appear to be transparency-practicing Morgan Stanley.”

As Park Chun-woong, Seoul manager of American investment bank Morgan Stanley-Korea, proposed an unofficial meeting, a Democratic Labor Party (DLP) executive threw out this substantial joke.

Park met with Lee Jae-young, chief of policy, and Song Tae-kyung, director of policy, to discuss management/labor relations and company competence for about an hour. DLP, which argues that foreign financial companies should not dominate domestic ones, revealed their negative view through Vice President Chun Young-sae, stating Morgan Stanley as an “international speculation firm.”

Park first asked DLP of their company perspective, management/labor relations, and order of investment. As Lee commented that the DLP’s principle is inclined towards “democratic socialism,” Park replied with a worried expression asking whether they have an intention of nationalization. Lee answered, “We work towards a ‘democratic participating firm’ where laborers and citizens can participate and democratically own and run business. We do not work towards making specific firms become nationalized.” He added that the firms should regard the laborers as partners.

To this, Park asked, “Foreign investors worry about the clearness competition with Korea Trade Unions. Do you regard the management and labor relations will worsen?” Lee answered, “DLP does not have policies which persuade or depress strikes. Strikes due to a lack of communication channel of laborer’s need will in fact be decreased.”

When Park pointed out the problem of firms leaving Korea due to high wages, Lee stressed the enlargement of publicly usable land as he said, “The biggest problem for these firms is not the high wages, but it is the high real estate price.” He added, “In Korea, wages comprise only 10 percent of the whole product, making it one of the lowest worldwide.” Lee compared Ansan to Tianjin.

Finally, when Park criticized the limitation of only 10 spots in the National Assembly, Lee replied, “We will confederate with citizen social groups and move with citizens to produce a 10 plus effect.”

It is known that Park will produce a report titled, “DLP’s Effects on Korea”, based on yesterday’s interview.

Jong-Koo Yoon jkmas@donga.com