Free Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty by Bradley K. Martin

creations.”
    Despite the considerable automation already accomplished in the factory, I thought the tractor assembly line still moved slowly, compared with automotive plants I had visited in other countries. The workers had a lot of waiting-around time on their hands. Officials said the factory produced one hundred tractors a day, which seemed a low figure considering that this was mass production of just two basic models. Officials obviously agreed: They wanted greater productivity. A colorful sign exhorted workers: “All should come out to fulfill the resolutions of the Seventeenth Session of the Fifth Central Committee of the Workers’ Party.” One of the resolutions was predictable: “Produce more!” The sign praised model workers, showing their pictures and describing their feats. One woman “did her job 200 percent.”
    The factory operated six days a week, on two shifts. It wasn’t clear how many hours an actual shift might be. Hong, when I asked him about it, replied: “In principle, according to the labor law, we do not allow them to work more than eight hours.” The general rule of thumb, he said, is “eight hours’ work, eight hours’ study and eight hours’ rest.” Overtime work requires “approval from higher administrative organs.” Considering the many reports of all-out work campaigns pushed by higher-ups in the party and government, it was easy to speculate that an eight-hour workday “in principle” could often stretch out longer in reality.
    Retirement ages, Hong said, were sixty for men and fifty-five for women—typical figures for East Asian countries, including Japan, at that time. I asked if many people of retirement age stayed on in the workplace for whatever reason. 12 I hoped the answer would hint at whether there might be pressure to postpone retirement to counter the shortage of younger workers. Hong said an occasional person of retirement age would stay on as a part-time “advisor,” drawing both pension and salary. In fact I had not seen many obviously elderly people working in his tractor factory or elsewhere. If such a practice was actually rare, that might have been one measure of the extent to which Confucianism, with its deference to age, remained a cultural forcein the North—or it might simply have meant the people were wearing out early by contemporary Western and Japanese standards.
    Workers made an average of 90
won,
or about $53 at the official exchange rate, per month, Hong said. But he quickly added that the wage was just frosting on the cake, since “the material and cultural life of our people is provided by the state.” Thus, “if we calculate the solicitude and benevolence they are receiving from the state—such as vacation facilities, free medical treatment, free education—the workers’ actual income is much more than their cash income.”
    Wage differentials were based on position and degree of skill. While college graduates made up the management corps, workers with ability could be promoted to team leader and workshop leader. “But the difference is not so much,” Hong said. The entire range ran from about 80
won
for beginners up to about 150
won
for the factory manager and highly skilled technicians. I heard of similar pay ranges at other enterprises, including a hothouse.
    Amazingly, Hong could not say how much the Kumsong plant’s tractors cost to produce. “We don’t calculate the cost of the tractors,” he said. “The Agricultural Committee takes care of that.” The factory supplied the tractors directly to the counties’ agricultural managements. Asked about the plant’s annual operating budget, Hong replied, “As I am not in charge of the plant’s budget, I don’t have a figure.” I hoped someone had some idea about the costs—if only in order to figure a rational selling price for the portion of output that was being sent abroad, mostly to Third World countries, particularly in the Middle East.
    Journeys outside