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Subject: Sth Korean workers seek real change 
   Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 06:53:16 -0600 
  From:  the guardian  (by way of Scott Marshall )
     To: worldlst@rednet.org (World List for Rednet)


South Korean: strikers seek real change

(The following article was published in "The Guardian", newspaper
of the Communist Party of Australia in its issue of Wednesday,
Januarů 22nd 1997. Contact address: 65 Campbell Street, Surry Hills.
Sydney. 2010 Australia. Fax: (612) 9281 5795.
Email:   Subscription rates on request)
******************************


The South Korean government of Kim Young-sam, after vainly
trying to contain and suppress a wave of strikes and
demonstrations called by the illegal Korean Confederation of
Trade Unions (KCTU), was finally forced to make some concessions
which, however, have been rejected by the striking unions.

Riot police with armoured vehicles fired volleys of tear gas shells
at thousands of striking workers in Seoul as arrest warrants were
issued for 20 union leaders. Unionists fought back with steel pipes.

At press time, the police had arrested six union leaders, including
one from Halla Engineering and Construction and another from Hyundai.

The seven top officials of the KCTU have defied the arrest warrants,
shifting the headquarters of the strike struggle to a tent in the
grounds of Seoul's Myongdong Cathedral where they have taken sanctuary.

Mr Choi Byoung-kuk, a leading prosecutor with the public security
forces, told the media last week that the strikes had to be stopped
or they "would provide North Korea and leftists with the opportunity
to start a revolution".

The ruling New Korea Party (NKP) called on prosecutors, police and
the National Security Planning Agency (known as the Korean CIA) to
root out what it called "impure forces" allegedly behind the
strike wave and branded the strikers' leaders as "pro-North Korean",
which is illegal in South Korea.

At their peak last week, between 600,000 and 900,000 workers were
claimed to be involved in strike action after the larger but normally
compliant Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU) was stirred by
its members to join the strike and co-ordinate actions with the more
militant KCTU.

The KCTU called a general strike at the end of December after the
NKP bulldozed 12 amendments to the labour law and the national security
law through the Korean National Assembly in seven minutes on December
26.

The amendments were passed in a secret early morning session without
any opposition MPs present.

The amended labour law, in the name of "flexible labour utilisation",
gives much more power to employers to dismiss workers, replace strikers
and with-hold overtime pay.
Š
It also continues the ban on more than one union operating in any
given workplace, denies teachers, bank, hospital, telecom and other
public sector workers the right to organise and to take industrial
action, and prohibits political action by trade unions.

The new laws also continue the ban on the KCTU which is campaigning
for major reform of the labour law, including introduction of a 40-hour
week and opposition to the introduction of a so-called "labour
lease system".

The Korean labour law was originally made under a system of military
dictatorship and has since been used as a tool of oppression of labour
unions, and as a means to dismiss and arrest many workers.

The amendments also restored aspects of the National Security Law
which had been removed with a great flourish in 1993 as a triumph
of democracy. The Department of Intelligence has had all the powers
it enjoyed during the military regime restored, including the right
to investigate the "crime of not informing the government about
spies (pul-ko-ji-choi)" and the "crime of praising North Korea
(chan-yang-ko-mu-choi)".

These "crimes" were used in the past to trample human rights
and as a means of political manipulation. Now, any speech in relation
to North Korea or any progressive political opinion is once again
the target of investigation.

Students, the press, workers and opposition politicians, who were
definitely not spies, remember the torture which was committed in
the underground cells of the Intelligence Bureau.

After a break for the New Year's Day holidays, the strike action was
back in full swing by January 6.

On that day, the major unions on strike at the large conglomerate
companies, such as Hyundai Motors, were joined for the first time
by many white collar unions covering workers in insurance, stocks
and securities companies, construction companies, clerical workers,
university employees, teachers and educational workers.

Radio and television journalists and broadcasters joined in  strike
action, as did the unions at the country's 24 major hospitals, including
the most prestigious, the Seoul National University General Medical
Centre.

All together 150 unions were now taking part in the general strike.
Public rallies involving many of the striking workers took place in
19 major urban centres throughout the country.

Western bourgeois media commentators made much of the unionists' concern
not to unduly damage the country's economy -- limiting the duration
of walkouts in the public sector and financial institutions, for instance
-- presenting it as evidence of the unions' weakness or impotence.

ŠThis fails to take into account Korean realities or the difficult
situation in which Korean unions must operate.

Most strikes in Korea are sit-down strikes where workers, instead
of withdrawing their labour and staying home, report to work and begin
the day with union meetings, rallies, and various other strike programmes,
including mass street rallies.

In the latest campaign, the KCTU leadership, steeled by its ten-year
struggle to build an independent representative trade union movement
in South Korea, orchestrated well disciplined and peaceful rallies
by striking workers that wove through all the streets of the major
cities throughout the country everyday.

Last week, the number of strikers escalated dramatically as public
sector workers struck for two days, bank workers walked out for four
hours on each of the same two days, and dock workers began an indefinite
strike.

As the strike campaign has grown, it has begun to stimulate other
social organisations and strata.

In Seoul, a vibrant protest rally by some 20,000 workers was joined
by many ordinary citizens, non-union workers, and students as they
marched to the Myongdong Cathedral until eventually the demonstrators
filled the shopping mall near the cathedral, singing protest songs,
workers' songs, and democracy songs.

The National Council of Churches in Korea called a meeting of 52 regional
human rights committees to set up a pan-Christian taskforce for the
re-amendment of the labour laws.

The KCTU Newspaper Department printed one million copies of a special
strike edition for general public reading. The striking workers took
bundles of the newspaper and other leaflets and petitions to shopping
centres, department stores, subway and railway stations, to meet with
the general public.

Similar campaigns were repeated in some 20 regional centres, from
the southernmost Cheju-do Island to the northernmost cities in Kangwon-do
province backgrounded by snow-capped mountains.

On January 8, striking unionists held a special "day with ordinary
people". The unionists at automobile service companies provided
free service at 27 car check-up points throughout the country.

In Chullabuk-do Province, members of the KCTU Provincial Council went
to various rural villages hit by recent heavy snows to assist in the
recovery work. And unionists in the special industrial estates, zones,
and complexes conducted a clean-up campaign to repair nearby environmental
damage.

Increasingly, the strike campaign has taken the form of protests against
the ruling New Korea Party and President Kim Young-sam.

ŠIn a statement issued last week, the KCTU made its position clear:
"Ever since December 26th, the day the laws were passed, workers
have been on general strike throughout the country. People from all
walks of life, students, professors, lawyers, religious groups have
been participating in protests against the Kim Young-sam government
by making statements and joining sit-ins, rallies and demonstrations.


"This lightening-fast legislation has been described as a coup
d'etat and the voices calling for the abolition of the unjust labour
laws, the overthrow of the government and the dissolution of the New
Korea Party are growing louder.

"We know all too well what will become of our country if we do
not put a stop to the present government which has crudely rushed
this legislation through the Assembly and which is reliving the ghost
of the past dictatorship."

Kwon Young-kil, the President of the KCTU, told reporters in Seoul:
"For a long time, trade unions fought for salary increases and
better working conditions. But we should look further than that and
aim for an overall reform of South Korean society.

"The aim of the present strike", he said, "is to get a
repeal of the law that was passed on December 26. But the strike also
has a deeper significance: it is the first example of trade unions
fighting to prevent the parliamentary process from being derailed,
and to raise the political consciousness of the workers.

"The law we are challenging affects not only wage-earners but
democracy at large.


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