ABSTRACT
Min Jeong secured a highly coveted job as a train attendant on the nation’s first high-speed bullet train, the KTX (Korea Train Express), which debuted on April 1, 2004. This was not only a momentous occasion for Min Jeong and the 350 other women who were hired as KTX train attendants; it marked the crowning achievement of the Korea Railroad Corporation (KORAIL), which made it possible for South Korea to became one of only five nations in the world that offered highspeed rail services at 300 kilometers per hour. KORAIL strived to deliver worldclass technology with world-class service by hiring the kind of young, slender, poised, beautiful, and college-educated woman that evoked images of “flight attendants on the ground.” In addition to demanding educational qualifications, including high levels of English-language proficiency, KTX train attendants had to meet stringent physical criteria, including height and weight standards, and pass a workplace entrance exam. For Min Jeong, getting a job as a KTX train attendant was like a “dream come true”; it was a source of pride and prestige in an ever more competitive labor market for young, college-educated women. Min Jeong’s initial excitement and anticipation, however, were transformed into feelings of anger, resentment, betrayal, and despair. After three years of intense protest, including holding public rallies and marches, occupying KORAIL offices and the National Assembly building, shaving union members’ heads, holding hunger strikes and scaling 40-m-high metal towers, she is one of the few remaining striking KTX train attendants still embroiled in a bitter, drawn-out labor dispute against KORAIL.2
