On February 14, 2004, a subcontracted worker of Hyundai Heavy Industries in Ulsan committed suicide by setting fire on himself. His suicide note read, 'Subcontracted workers are humans too. We want human dignity.' The martyr's name was Park Ilsu. Following his demise, the workers of Ulsan launched a struggle to realize his death wish. Naturally, their struggle was against capital and power. But that was not the only enemy that the struggling workers faced. The film documents the story revealed by a subcontracted worker's death as it unravels over 56 days and ends with his burial.

Park Ilsu's suicide note begins with the sentence 'Subcontracted workers are humans too.' This is a basic fact. But in Hyundai Heavy Industries and elsewhere, informal workers are denied their right to live as humans. The sacrifice of countless workers since the death of martyr Chon Taeil has gradually advanced the democratic labor movement of Korea, but the majority of workers today are still calling for their right to live with human dignity. History has taught us that it is only when workers unite in their struggle that they can live as humans and as workers. But in the struggle following the death of Park, who had declared his basic human rights using extreme means, the workers failed to unite, much less put up a proper struggle. The struggle following Park's death revealed the many different positions among workers - subcontracted workers of Hyundai Heavy Industries who struggled to inherit the martyr's spirit and abolish informal employment, representatives of a yellow union patronized by the company who had lost their working class identity, leaders of the so-called democratic labor movement who focused only on bargaining and failed to turn the struggle into a massive attack against informal employment, the majority of regular workers who lacked the spirit of solidarity to join the struggle of the informal workers, the handful of regular workers and comrades who supported and joined the struggle... I wanted to question who among them were true workers, and who's side we should stand on. Today, as the conflict within the labor movement surrounding the social contract reaches a boiling point, which path should the workers take?

2005 제9회 인권영화제
2005 제5회 인디다큐페스티발
2005 제9회 서울국제노동영화제