The daughter of Yi So-sun, a labor activist, she began working in the textile industry as a machinist's assistant in 1971 at the age of sixteen.
The previous year, her brother Jeon Tae-il had died after setting himself on fire to protest working conditions for female workers in the country's textile and garment industry.
Jeon also launched a non-profit organization which supports female workers.
[1][2] In 2003, she published They are not Machines: Korean Women Workers and Their Fight for Democratic Trade Unionism in the 1970s.
[3] In 2012, she was elected to the South Korean National Assembly as a member of the opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy.