KCTU Action alert over POSCO Union member Ha Joong Keun's death

[Update: August 15th saw memorial rally in Seoul for Ha Joong Keun, members of both the KCTU and the Democratic Labour Party attended. The group intended to march to the Blue House (home of South Korea's President) but all 1200 were either arrested or detained near city hall. Here's a link with pictures (in Korean).



Here's the official action alert and lenghty analysis from the KCTU over union Ha Joong Keun's death earlier this month

KCTU/KFCITU Action Alert : Union Member dies due to severe beating by riot police

UNION MEMBER DIES DUE TO SEVERE BEATING BY RIOT POLICE

58 UNION MEMBERS JAILED FOR TRADE UNION ACTIVITES

At 2:30 am on August 1, 2006 Ha Joong Keun, a member of the Pohang
Local Union, an affiliate of the Korean Federation of Construction
Industry Trade Unions (KFCITU), KCTU died. He was severely beaten by
riot police during a demonstration in front of POSCO headquarters on
July 16. At that time, close to 3,000 members of the Pohang Local Union
were participating in a sit-down demonstration inside POSCO
headquarters.

Pohang Local goes on Strike

On July 1, the over 4,000 members of the Pohang Local union went on
strike. The union’s key demands were a 15% increase in wages,
implementation of a five-day work week, and dignity and respect at the
work site. Although the union members are hired by subcontractors, the
majority work at the construction plants operated by POSCO; and thus,
POSCO has a tremendous influence over the subcontractors in whether
they negotiate with the union or not. Recognizing this, on July 11, the
union was able to get an agreement from the POSCO management that they would mediate so that the sub contractors would not only negotiate with the union but more importantly POSCO agreed to work towards a positive and constructive resolution to the strike. However; two days later, the union discovered that POSCO had brought in replacement workers. In doing this, POSCO clearly breached the good-faith agreement with the union.

Angered, over 3,000 union members marched to POSCO headquarters to
confirm whether the revelations were indeed correct. Rather than
admitting that they had indeed hired replacement workers, the
management stated that they had no role in the matter and they were
neutral parties in the employer relationship between the union and the
sub contractors and the main contractor. The union held its ground and
sought an apology from the POSCO management. In response, POSCO refused
and called in the riot police to forcibly remove the workers.

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Union Members enter POSCO Headquarters

Fearing that they would be forcibly disbursed by at least 10,000 riot
police, on July 14 the workers, spontaneously decided to go inside
POSCO headquarters and conduct a sit-down demonstration rather than
engage in a violent confrontation with the riot police. POSCO has
alleged that the union had deliberately planned the “occupation” but it is clear that the union had not prepared for such a large-scale action as evident by the union’s purchase of larges cases of water and food after the union members had entered POSCO headquarters.

For nine days, the workers remained holed up in the POSCO headquarters
from the fifth floor to the ninth floor surrounded by thousands of riot
police. During the lock-in, the union representatives and the sub
contractors held a two-day negotiation session which ended in failure.
Although the union had requested POSCO to mediate the dispute as they
had earlier agreed, POSCO refused. In fact the management chose to
increase the pressure and repression against the union. In two
occasions POSCO cut off all power in the building; thus in the last
four days of the sit-down demonstration, the workers had no access to
water or electricity.

Union Repression---Ha Joong Keun Severely Beaten by Riot Police

In addition, thousands of riot police were called from all across the
country to possibly forcibly remove the workers from the building.
Outside POSCO headquarters, the remaining union members conducted
solidarity demonstrations which inevitably resulted in confrontations
with the riot police. At a rally coordinated by the KFCITU on July 16,
the clashes with the police was so brutal that several members were
beaten forcing them to be hospitalized. It was at this rally that Ha
Joong Keun was beaten severely on the head by riot police who kept on
pounding his head with their metal shields. This clearly further fueled
the anger and frustration of the remaining members out side the POSCO
headquarters and thus, many union members wielded steel pipes to
protect themselves from the riot police in several demonstrations after
Ha was hospitalized.

Furthermore, on July 19 in a regional rally coordinated by the
Kyonggido Branch of the KCTU, the police not only surrounded the more
than 3,000 demonstrators and blocked them from getting close to POSCO
headquarters to support those locked inside, the police used water
spray to break up the demonstration. Also, bus loads of supporters,
mainly members of the KFCITU locals were blocked by riot police from
leaving the nearby cities of Yeosoo, Daegu, and Ulsan to support the
Pohang local union. There were even some buses carrying union members
that were stopped in the highway and barred from entering the city of
Pohang.

Throughout the sit-down demonstration, the President of the Pohang
local Lee Ji Kyung consistently stated that the union would voluntarily
leave the headquarters if the sub contractors agreed to return to the
negotiating table. Despite attempts by the Korean Confederation of
Trade Unions (KCTU), Korean Democratic Labor Party members of the
National Assembly and the representatives of civil society groups, the
sub contractors, POSCO management, and the government refused to have
any dialogue with the union.

In the end, after nine days over 2,500 union members who had remained
throughout the occupation chose to voluntarily leave the building
without any concessions. As the members walked out of the POSCO
headquarters, the police immediately detained 138 union members who
they believed to be the key organizer of the action. Currently 58 union
leaders and members were jailed for attempting to exercise their
fundamental trade union rights. At 10:00 am on July 27, twenty nine of
those arrested went on a hunger strike to protest the continued
repression by the government as well as POSCO’s efforts to launch
an anti-union public relations campaign, in which the union has been
vilified as violent and lawless “gangsters.”

Organizing to Change the Construction Site at POSCO, where the Working Conditions are Dangerous and Inhumane.

The Pohang local union, formed in 1989 is one of four local unions
(Yeosoo local, Chunnamdongbu local, and Ulsan local) that comprises the
Network of Construction Plant Workers Union within the KFCITU.
Construction plant workers work in the construction and reconstruction
of big factories and plants that are used to produced petrochemicals,
oils, and other dangerous chemicals. In the case of POSCO, it is the
production of steel.

The work is backbreaking and extremely dangerous, as the workers are
exposed to a series of hazardous products and chemicals that can cause
serious illnesses and possibly terminal diseases. Although POSCO prides
itself in protecting the environment and incorporating environmental
sustainability in its steel production, construction plant workers work
daily in dangerous and unsafe working conditions in POSCO plants. This
year to date, there have been at least twenty minor a major industrial
accidents but 95% of these accidents are unreported and deliberately
hidden from public and government scrutiny. In addition, even though
the use of asbestos is banned in South Korea, it is still used in POSCO
plants, and thus, workers are exposed to a scientifically known
substance that causes lung cancer.

Although South Korea is considered an OECD country, the workers in
POSCO must work in working conditions similar to that of those in
developing countries. Since the construction plants have no washing or
changing facilities, the workers are forced to change outdoors. The
bathrooms are inadequate, insufficient, and filthy. In fact, in a work
site consisting of 3,000 workers, there are only 6 to 7 bathrooms and
about 5 to 7 portable bathrooms. Furthermore, since there is basically
no canteen or eating facility in the POSCO construction plant, workers
are forced to eat at the worksite, sometimes on the dirty floor or
ground

In addition, on an average, construction plant workers work 8 to 10
hours a week, seven days a week, totally 70 hours. They are denied any
social and medical benefits or vacation pay. In fact is a “dream” of many construction plant workers to have at least one day of the week off so they can spend time with their families. Thus, it is not surprising and completely normal that construction plant workers who have worked for more than twenty years have rarely spent time with their children, and as in the words of one worker, “I worked the entire time and during this time my daughter is no longer a child.”

Relationship between Sub Contractors and POSCO

The members of the Pohang local union are categorized as subcontract
and irregular (non-permanent) workers in South Korea. Since regular
(permanent) workers are hired directly by the company they are
guaranteed three basic labor rights---the right to organize, the right
to strike, and the right to bargain. On the other hand, sub contract
workers must negotiate with the sub contractors as they are hired by
them but in reality the real power in terms of determining wages,
working conditions, and work hours lies with the user company, the main
contractor. Most user companies are big conglomerates such as SK
Petrochemicals, LG Caltex, and POSCO.

In many cases user companies have terminated contracts with sub
contracts once the workers organize and form a union. Because of this,
many sub contract companies refuse to negotiate with the union.
Furthermore, both the user company and the sub contract company shift
the blame between each other in refusing to recognize and negotiate the
union. It should be also noted that many sub contracting companies are
owned by former top level managers of user companies resulting in an
intertwined relationship between the sub contractors and the user
company. In the case of Pohang, the main user company is POSCO and thus
the real power behind the sub contractors is POSCO.

POSCO Made 6 Billion Profits in 2005 at the Expense of its Workers

In 2005 it was reported that POSCO made a profit of close to 6 billion
dollars (US). Yet, construction plant workers who have contributed
tremendously to this profit are paid simply pennies. A construction
plant worker at a POSCO plant makes an average of $90 to $95 (US) daily
for a ten hour work day, while workers in nearby cities of Ulsan,
Chunnamdongbu, and Yeosoo make an average of $120 to $150 (US) daily.

POSCO Contradicts Company Codes of Conduct and Launches Systematic Campaign to Destroy the Pohang Local Union

As many big conglomerates, POSCO is very conscious of its public image
both within and outside of South Korea. POSCO has donated millions of
dollars to environmental, cultural, and human rights organizations. It
has also launched the POSCO TJ Park Prize, an international award to be
given annually beginning from 2007 for “achievements in community
development & philanthropy, science, and education. According to
its materials, the Community Development and Philanthropy Prize will be
given to “an individual or organization that has made outstanding
achievements with the enhancements in the quality of human lives in
Asia.” Before POSCO starts giving awards to others in enhance the
quality of life, they should start at home by making sure those workers
who work at their facilities work in a safe and decent environment and
that they are paid enough to improve the quality of their lives as well
as those of their families.

In June 2003, POSCO prided itself in adopting a company Codes of
Conduct in order to, “implement corporate ethics that meet
internationally accepted standards thus making another bold step toward
becoming a globally respected and trusted company.” In both the
UN Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, there are specific articles
pertaining to the right to organize, the right to join a union, and the
right to strike. Even though the members of the Pohang Local union are
not directly hired by POSCO, they still work in a POSCO work site and
thus the international conventions comply. However, recent internal
documents that were made public by the union revealed that POSCO had a
deliberate and systematic campaign to utilize its political and
economic clout at all levels to basically destroy the Pohang local union

POSCO urged the government to send in thousands of riot police from
across the country to basically use force if necessary to break the
strike. POSCO also galvanized the local citizens of Pohang to launch
counter demonstrations against the union, stating that the union was
creating a bad image to the city. Since POSCO controls at least 70% of
the city’s economy, clearly the local government and the
businesses are heavily influenced by POSCO. POSCO also used its
influence to launch a highly distorted media campaign against the
unions through major media outlets such as KBS and Chosun Ilbo. In fact
the mainstream media has portrayed the union as violent and engaging in
illegal activities, while POSCO has been portrayed as the “innocent victim.” Finally, it should be noted that POSCO had a plan to employ replacement workers and migrant workers during the strike. By brining in migrant workers, POSCO was attempting to increase the tension between migrant workers and native workers. These actions and the campaign to destroy the Pohang local union are clear violations of all international human rights and cultural conventions that honor trade union rights and thus, contradict POSCO’s own Codes of Conduct.

Union’s Future Activities

Despite the increased repression from the South Korean government and
POSCO, the members of the Pohang local union are strongly united in
their effort to prove that their strike and their actions are justified. Although both the government and POSCO was hoping that the union would be destroyed by arresting all of its key leaders and potential leaders, the members are steadfast in their commitment to exist as a union and more importantly to make sure that their demands as workers and as human beings are fulfilled. In addition to continuing the struggle in Pohang a delegation of the local union is currently in Seoul engaged in a series of activities including visits to members of the National Assembly, main stream media head quarters, and government officials; demonstrations in front of the Blue House and the Police headquarters to protest both the government’s and POSCO’s actions; and to publicize their struggle to the citizens of Seoul.

The support for the unions has slowly increased. Recently more than 57
national civil society groups, women’s organizations, academic associations, and other organizations have professed support for the union. The KCTU had declared a national rally in support of the Pohang local union for August 4; however, due to the recent death of Ha Joong Keun this rally will also be a memorial service and march in honor of Ha Joong Keun

For more information :

Lee Changgeun

International Director
Korean Confederation of Trade Unions
Tel.: +82-2-2670-9234 Fax: +82-2-2635-1134
E-mail: inter@kctu.org Web-site : http://kctu.org
2nd Fl. Daeyoung Bld., 139 Youngdeungpo-2-ga, Youngdeungpo-ku, Seoul 150-032 Korea

And

Lee Jin-sook
International Director
Korean Federation of Construction Industry Trade Union
Tel : +82-2-843-1432, +82-11-326-7597 Fax : +82-2-843-1436
Email : jinsook66@gmail.com

fighting bilaterals

There has recently been a few interesting initiatives to fight the proliferation of bilateral agreements, including more information sharing between movements in different countries (something also facilitated by the great site bilaterals.org) and this recent conference which I heard about from gomediaction.net. I'll reprint their post below.

Fighting FTAs: the International Strategy Workshop

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During July 27-29, 2006, FTA Watch, GRAIN and Bilaterals.org organized the first ever international workshop to make a strategic analysis of the struggles against FTA in Bangkok, Thailand. Participants come from social movements that are struggling against FTAs or bilateral trade agreements in 19 countries. For example:

Costa Rica
Costa Rica lies in the United States’ backyard. Although the government agreed behind closed doors to sign the Central American Free Trade Agreement or CAFTA, a large coalition of the public are against it. The people learned from the devastating experience of Mexico after it signed the NAFTA and Chile after they signed an FTA with the US. So they mobilized and put pressure on their government until Parliament refused to approve the terms of the Agreement. As a result, CAFTA is not currently effective in Costa Rica.

“Costa Rica has 4 public universities. Of these, three universities decided take a stand together against the signature of the FTA. The State Ombudsman is another organization which has taken a stand against the FTA. A former president and other senior political figures are also clearly opposed to the deal. Artists organized cultural events to strongly oppose FTAs. Finally, the parliament had to disapprove the deal”, Maria Eugenio Trejos from Pensamiento Solidario said.

Colombia
Although Colombia has a high degree of intervention by the US, the people came out strongly against the FTA with the US. “On august 12, 2004, we mobilized a million people in the capital city. Indigenous people blocked the highways. The government shot people. Over six hundred people were injured and 6 people were dead. However, we were able to bring the FTA with the US under the scrutiny of the parliament. And there will be a vote in October” Aurelio Suarez from Asociacion Nacional por la Salvacion Agropecuaria (ANSA) said.

Phillippines
The government is in a hurry to negotiate and sign an FTA with Japan, but the people, not even the parliamentarians, have never received any information about the terms of the negotiations. Parliamentarians and civil society made an appeal to the Supreme Court because the signing of the FTA with Japan is a violation of the Constitution. Until now, the government cannot sign the FTA yet.

Mario Aguja, a parliamentarian of Akbayan political party said, “We drafted an appeal to the court saying workers will be affected. Farmers will be affected. We want information. As a parliamentarian, we have to protect people. Without information, how could we protect our people? We also started a campaign on this violation of the Constitution”

South Korea
The second round of negotiations with the US were recently closed beforeschedule because of the massive protest of almost one hundred thousand demonstrators and a one-day strike from labour unions throughout the country. Choi Jae Kwan, a delegate from the Korean Peasants League, said, “when we started our campaign, a survey found that only 20% opposed the FTA because most of them did not know anything about the FTA, hence they were neutral. But when over 300 economists and other academics joined the team to carry out a whole range of research studies for 3 months, resultingin a 700 page publication distributed to the public, there was a lot of interest. The latest poll shows that 52% now oppose the FTA. In the latest demonstration, representatives from 14 sectors such as agriculture, industry, public health, cinemas, music, media, education, consumers, etc were gather into a network with alliances at regional level. There were campaign tours throughout the country, organizing cultural festivals and seminars in every province.

Since March 2002, Robert Zoellick, the United State Trade Representative (USTR) at that time, reported to the finance committee of the US senate that the US will use bilateral trade negotiations as a tool to ensure American’s benefit around the world.

FTA or a bilateral trade agreements are being used as a new mechanism to guarantee benefits of the US in accessing resources and markets of other countries, and control over foreign economies together with international financing orgnizations like World Bank, IMF, and Development Banks in different regions. The aid and assistance by developed countries through organisations like USAID also pushes forward neoliberalist policies together with the expansion of power and military influence over important strategic points of the US around the world.

It is now clear that the FTA is not simply a matter of trade, but a political apparatus of the powerful US to expand its new brand of imperialism, in order to take over, trade, control investment and national resources of countries in different part of strategic areas around the world as we have seen from the experiences of countries in Central and South America, Pakistan, South Korea, Thailand and Philippines. Another important point is that countries negotiating FTAs with the US will have to support the US’s foreign policies especially war against terrorism, whereby they have to send their troops to Iraq and suppress people using labels such as “terrorists”.

However, the US is not the only country trying to expand its neoimperialism. The European Union, China, Japan and even India which is a new-born superpower, are also trying to move their policy into the same direction. This has a great effect over small countries whereby small entrepreneurs, communities, women, children and environment are severly affected.

These superpowers use “divide and conquer”tactics both at international and regional levels to pressure each country to conclude the negotiations as soon as possible in competition with each other. These agreements divide society into opposing sectors such as between exporters who gain from more exports, consumers who get short term gains of cheap imported products, patients who will have to buy expensive medicines, workers who are exploited and farmers who only await for the collapse.

The outstanding characteristic of an FTA is that every country faces is the secrecy of the negotiations, no matter how developed or democratic that country is, as happening in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea. In the recent case of FTA negotiations in South Korea, the government of the South Korea has agreed to keep the negotiation texts out of the public eyes for 3 years from the date the agreement is effective. This is nothing but non-transparent, non-democratic and excludes the participation of the people. Therefore, civil societies in countries are standing up and demanding the right to participate and access information. However, available information is still limited and some governments also employed violence means to suppress demonstrators. “If it is supposed to benefit us why wont they tell us what is being negotiated?”

One outstanding feature of the negotiations is that the government in each country will try to exaggerate the benefits of FTAs as in the case of South Africa, the government publicized the FTA as a “train to heaven”, driving South Africa to join highly developed countries’rank. However, the experiences of countries already signed FTAs such as Chile and Australia revealed that the real benefits were over-estimated and in some cases the impacts were worse. In Chile, FTAs caused a loss of land, an amendment of national legislation so as to promote privatisation of basic infrastructure and utilities including water. This means, piped water, drinking water, sea water, water in reservoirs and water in rivers, altogether 80% of water in Chile now belongs to private companies. Even the ocean has been privatized.

For Australia where Australia-US FTA has already been implemented for one and a half years, there was a study showing that only 1 year after FTA came into force, the exports of Australia in fact decreased by 5% and instead its trade deficit increased by 5%. This is not what the Australians were promised. The US tried to change the legislation on intellectual property rights and the Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme (PBS) of Australia which will result in a higher price of medicines. At the same time, the local pharmaceutical companies have moved to other countries because they could not compete with imported products from the US. These impacts have helped to raise some awareness of the people on the FTA, leading to a demand to revise the terms of the FTA with the US, and an opposition to the upcoming FTA negotiations with China.

The experiences of different countries show that when information is disseminated, and when research and analysis are carefully done with economic, social, cultural and political dimensions, and research, people soon become aware of how FTA will impact different sectors. Until then, a powerful opposition will take place. Costa Rica whose government already signed up to the CAFTA has seen a movement to stop the approval of the FTA due to popular protest. In Philippines, the government has not been able to sign an FTA with Japan as a court case claiming it is a violation of the Constitution has been filed. In Colombia, academic institutions and other independent organisations jointly declared their position against FTA while in South Korea, Thailand and Ecuador, people have successfully used information to campaign and have been able to delay the negotiations and signatory.

From the exchange of civil society’s experience in 19 countries throughout the three-day workshop, leaders of people movements have agreed to form a network to exchange information, synthesise the experiences, and conduct analysis and joint research on impacts, hidden agendas and tactics of governments in convincing their people with the FTA. Moreover, they will keep monitoring transnational corporations and other capitalists that are a driving force of the FTA negotiations. And they will continue fighting together in solidarity.

(30 July/Bangkok, Thailand)

Participants are from 19 countries: Mexico, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Columbia, Chile, Ecuador, Argentina, Morocco, Senegal, Mozambique, South Africa, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Korea, Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand

politics of naming

I'm not normally one for analytical posts too far off the mark of labour and political issues -- not that I actually post much other than current events anyway -- but I'd thought I would throw in some culture commentary for once, just because. Today's post is the connection between the naming and class valourization and is a hat's off to some better posting on this sort of thing over at antti's blog. A while back, perhaps a long while back, he posted briefly on the renaming of some of the old hillside squatter communities in Seoul and the effect this had on land values which went up once the apparent stigma (others might actually be proud) of the name was removed for middle class apartment blocks now in these areas. My post today, however, is on a similar but related theme.

As I was coming home this evening in a taxi (I visited tae ju ri and came back late) I couldn't help but notice the name of a new luxury apartment called enrichia. The is not the first use of a name like this I've see, but perhaps it was the -ia rather than the -pia (my personal pet peeve -- I'm not sure why) that got me thinking about other weird names. Enrichville, Richtel, even 'Richevil,' I'm sure there is a Richpia too; I've seen these on other complexs, or something very near to that. I've also seen lots bars and restaurants with names like nobless oblige, ennoble, nobel, etc, not to mention plenty of bobos (bourgois bohemians) and a few yuppies in the names (all used in the positive sense, as if this was something you would want to be), etc.

As far as I know from Antti's the renamed districts have pretty normal names I wonder if there is some connection, however, between english names in particular and class ideology. It just seems easier to do in English. Keep in mind that these are expensive apartments, the most expensive ones in fact. Whereas back home it is more often the not so nice apartments that have the ostentatious names.

What is so curious about it is that the names used are actually pretty crass and offensive. Noblesse oblige is only used sarcastically anyway, if you called yourself a 'noble' people would think you are a snob, and who would actually want to be called a bobo or a yuppie as a point of pride anyway. And if I told someone that I live in 'richville,' well, I just don't know... As for signs in Korean, I've just never seen anything in Korea that says "be a Yangban" (anyways, dear readers, please supply me with these if they do exist) or some slang equivalent of "snotty kids from Gangnam," perhaps "Chaebol Kid" would work, neither have I seen a "Puja Maul" so I have to assume that here English operates as some way to be classist or advertise class in a way that is well, kinda creepy and unsettling to an outside viewer.

I realize that inequality is certainly going up here, but it is no where here as much as it is in America. So, how does one actually select to go to such a place and what are the implications. How does it sound? "Hone, let's go to noblesse oblige tonight, they have really good Anju, and after that we can visit your sister in Richville." "Sorry babe, they said they were going to the Yuppie cafe."

Anyway... besides this brief foray into anthropology, I'll be back to more labour and other news soon.

The Qatar Strategy

Here's a breaking story from the Hankyoreh. Seems the Korean and US governments have decided to negotiate some of the more contentious issues of its current FTA in another country. This may remind some of the strategies of multinational trade agreements after the Seattle protests of 1999. At each meeting after, the venues became much more fortified -- remember the mediveal fences and walls at Quebec City (FTAA) and Genoa (G8) -- until they just decided to leave democratic countries where international activists could gather altogether so as not to face oppossition. Of course, this situation is slightly different in that it is a bilateral agreement (and a big one at that), but the theme of moving negotiation venues as far away from opposition rings true in this case and is designed to let the more controversial issues slip out off the public's radar.

From today's Hankyoreh:

Seoul, Washington to hold FTA negotiations in third country

Seoul and Washington reportedly have a plan to hold separate negotiations on the controversial issue of pharmaceutical pricing in a third country, ahead of the third round of FTA talks to be held in the U.S.

According to Rep. Hyun Ae-ja of the Democratic Labor Party (DLP), and confirmed anonymously by more than one government official yesterday, the two nations are coordinating their opinions over the time and location of the third-country negotiations. The United States, in particular, has suggested Southeast Asia, such as Malaysia or Singapore, and has proposed that the meeting happen in August.

A government official said, "These separate negotiations are official, not a behind-the-scenes meeting. In addition, the two sides haven’t yet agreed over the time and place. Whether or not to have the negotiations at all is unclear, as well."

During a forum regarding the controversial issue of pharmaceutical pricing being subject to negotiation, Rep. Hyun said, "To reach agreement on medicine pricing, South Korea and the U.S. decided to hold behind-the-scenes negotiations in a third country prior to the third official round of FTA talks due to be held in Washington."

In response, Jeon Man-bok, an official of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, remarked, "This is an issue to be disclosed by the U.S. and South Korea simultaneously, so wait and see," suggesting that the informal negotiations were indeed in the cards.

Rep. Hyun said that The Ministry of Health and Welfare earlier called the introduction of the so-called positive list system for medical pricing, currently used in South Korea, "is a matter of policy sovereignty, not a target of negotiation, but in fact, [the ministry] is bargaining with the U.S., unable to reject its demands. It is inappropriate to have separate talks on sensitive medical supplies in a third nation, which will attract relatively less attention [to the important issue]," he added.

Union activist from POSCO struggle dies from police injuries

UPDATE (Aug. 8th): Here's the link to an ICFTU article condemning the police attack. They claim that with a US 6 Billion dollar profit last year, POSCO can well afford to negotiate. Meanwhile, the Hankyoreh reports that strikes in POSCO's home town of Pohang continue to escalate, as does the police reaction.

I had been joking to friends a while back that I hadn't seen the 1001 brigade of riot police at the FTA protests so I knew it was okay to attend without serious threat. I was curious where they were anyway but later found out when I watched footage from the suppression of the POSCO solidarity protests in Pohang that same week. I've written briefly before about the 1001 (and some of the other squads numbered in the low 1000s) and their sordid history: it seems they are the ones who have inflicted the most violence on protestors, causing, in many cases, irreparable damage, even death. Our reports on the deaths of farmers during last fall's rice liberalization protests you can see in our december archives. The South Korean media has also covered some of their tactics, such as sharpening metal sheilds, etc, and there have been inquiries before. Following the brutal suppression of a non-violent protest by Daewoo Union organizers, stock footage of the 1001 was used in the British Zombie film 28 days later: in that scene where they infect the apes with 'rage'.

I think it is time for a caimpaign to get rid of the 1001 itself, as well as the other quasi mafia-ish units that do similar work. Actually, I'm really curious to how this group was formed and recruited. It doesn't seem to be the ordinary conscript riot police but a special anti-labour crack squad. Anyways, I'm reprinting the news from today's Hankyoreh below:

The Death of a Labour Union Protestor

A laborer who took to the streets demanding better working conditions has died. Ha Jung-geun was part a demonstration in support of the Pohang Construction union's sit-in at POSCO headquarters when he was injured while police forcibly dispersed the gathering, and on Tuesday he lost his struggle to stay alive. Labor activists say his brain was injured when he was hit with a police shield. The police say that is not what happened. There will have to be an inquiry, but no one can claim with any confidence that his death is unrelated to harsh working conditions and the way the authorities handled the situation.

It is the police's hard-line response that led to this tragedy. Others at the same demonstration say all of a sudden that the police attempted to disperse the event by force. The union had gone ahead with the demonstration, despite a police decision not to permit it, but the police nevertheless should have been careful enough to make sure no one was hurt. Have they forgotten how the superintendent of the National Police Agency had to step down after two farmers lost their lives in the course of the "farmers' assembly" held late last year? Law and order are important, but people's lives still have to be held precious. Otherwise police authority loses legitimacy and becomes no different than simple violence.

To keep Ha's death from having been in vain, there needs to be a thorough investigation, and the police have to be made responsible for their actions if they are found to be at fault. It really is time for a change in the police's problematic methods of dealing with demonstrations. The most fundamental solution would be to end the vicious cycle of fight-to-the-death demonstrations and the government's high-handed ways of dealing with demonstrators. We do not mean to say that it is entirely the government's fault that things get violent. However, it is the government that holds the key to ending the cycle, not labor activists. Workers whose livelihoods are already at stake do not have the physical and mental endurance it would take to end the cycle of violence. The government needs to set an example by trying not to upset these workers, and respond peacefully to protests.

The current high-handed way of dealing with the Pohang labor union needs to stop. Some 58 people have been formally arrested, more than any in a single incident under Roh Moo-hyun's government, and even more are being prosecuted. POSCO is getting ready to sue the union with a massive lawsuit. This attempt to completely destroy the union organization is only going to incite more serious resistance. It is the wrong approach, unless the goal is to wage a war on unions. The government needs to give some serious consideration as to how to end the cycle.

Korean Missle Crisis: New Materials

I haven't really covered much to date on the missle crisis, mostly because what is available in the mainstream media is easily accessible. However, today I glanced at the People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy english site and noticed there were a bunch of statements. I'll link them here because we haven't much about the reaction from Northeast Asian civil society and social movement groups on the crisis in the media. I've attached two statements: one from a NE coalition and one from a coalition of Korean NGOs.

The PSPD site also has some older posts on Pyeontaek base expansion that are worth a read.

This statement was initiated by the Northeast Asian network of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC-NEA):

Joint Statement*

Northeast Asian Citizens’ Call for a Peaceful Solution to the Missile Crisis

Click "view full post" to read the entire text.

We, citizens working for peace in Northeast Asia, express our deep concern over the recent missile tests by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Though the DPRK claims the tests to be an “exercise of its legitimate right as a sovereign state,” they can only increase military tension on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia, and will provoke a regional arms race. The tests run counter to the commitment to “joint efforts for lasting peace and stability in Northeast Asia” declared in the Joint Statement of the Fourth Round of Six-Party Talks in September 2005.

We recognize that US policy regarding the DPRK, including maintained military pressure and a refusal to engage in bilateral talks, contributed to the DPRK’s act of brinkmanship. Pressure or sanctions will not bring about a solution to the nuclear and missile crisis. Only dialogue in good faith can bring a peaceful solution to the current crisis.

We call on the governments and peoples in the region as follows:

1. We call upon DPRK to refrain from any further missile launch and make efforts to hold dialogue in good faith with the governments concerned, including at the upcoming North-South Ministerial Talks.

2. We urge the region’s governments to pursue negotiations on the basis of the 2005 Joint Statement of the Six-Party Talks. The US should hold immediate bilateral talks with the DPRK. Japan should continue its talks based on the 2002 Pyongyang Declaration, avoiding mention of possible preemptive strikes or other military responses. The UN Security Council must not focus on punitive measures, but rather on promoting the governmental dialogue and consultation.

3. We call on the governments to bear in mind the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula, exercise restraint, and avoid any action that may further intensify and complicate the situation. We call on all governments concerned not to strengthen the military power on the pretext of the missile launch. Developing and deploying missile defense systems are counterproductive as they can accelerate arms race and increase missile tension in the region.

4. We reiterate our belief that people-to-people mutual support is vital to build peace in the region. Humanitarian support to the DPRK should be continued. We oppose any sanctions that would threaten the lives of the DPRK’s people. We urge the media to refrain from any exaggerated reports on the North Korean threat that promote hostile sentiment among peoples, and encourage it to focus on peoples’ initiatives to end this crisis.

5. We urge the governments of Northeast Asia to take serious steps to develop an inclusive, sub-regional mechanism for consultations on issues of common security concern

July 11, 2006

Signatories** (As of July 11, 2006)

AU Pak Kuen (Hong Kong Professional Teachers' Union, Hong Kong)
CHEN Huaifan (Chinese People's Association for Peace and Disarmament, Beijing)
Ya Han CHUANG (Peacetime Foundation of Taiwan, Taipei)
ENKHSAIKHAN Jargalsaikhan (Blue Banner, Mongolia)
Vadim GAPONENKO (Maritime State University, Vladivostok)
JUNG Gyung Lan (Director, Center for Peaceful Future of Korea, Women Making Peace, Seoul)
KAWASAKI Akira (Peace Boat, Tokyo)
KIM Jeong Soo (Representative, Women Making Peace, Seoul)
Anselmo LEE (Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA), Bangkok)
LEE Mihwa (Secretary General, Nonviolent Peaceforce Corea, Seoul)
Kathy MATSUI (Global Citizenship Dept., Seisen University, Tokyo)
Gus MICLAT (Initiatives for International Dialogue, Manila)
PARK Joon S. (Co-chairperson, Nonviolent Peaceforce Corea, Seoul)
PARK Sun Song (People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, Seoul)
PARK Sung Yong (Co-chairperson, Nonviolent Peaceforce Corea, Seoul)
SASAMOTO Jun (Japanese lawyers International Solidarity Association (JALISA), Tokyo)
Philip YANG (Taiwan Security Research Center, National Taiwan University, Taipei)
YOSHIOKA Tatsuya (Director, Peace Boat / Northeast Asian Regional Initiator, Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict, Tokyo)


* This statement was initiated by the Northeast Asian network of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC-NEA) and made open to signatures by all.
** Affiliation in bracket is for identification purpose only.

Statement from Korean NGOs on North Korea's Missle Launch

North Korea pushed forward with their missile launch last week. Other nations such as South Korea, the U.S., and Japan reacted by taking a hard-line approach. As a result, these actions immediately complicated the security situation on the Korean Peninsula.

We express regret that despite concerns from South Korea and the international community, North Korea proceeded with missile tests. It is not yet clear whether the missile firing was utilized as a North Korean 'diplomatic strategy' to press the U.S. into direct negotiations, or used as a 'military deterrent' in response to military threats from the U.S. Whatever North Korea’s intentions, missile launches were an unwise action which raised the security stakes on the Korean Peninsula while also increasing leverage of hawks in Washington and Tokyo.

We are also deeply worried with the adoption of a hard-line response, both domestically and internationally, towards North Korea. President Bush ceased negotiations regarding North Korea's missiles as soon as he took office. Moreover, the Bush Administration has ignored North Korea and maintained a strategy based on military threats against the North. Therefore, the U.S. government cannot avoid blame for this recent unfortunate event. The Japanese government should also be blamed for keeping its long-time hard-line approach toward North Korea since the Pyeongyang Declaration in September 2002. Lastly, the South Korean government has not promoted military trust-building, nor done enough to create a more favorable atmosphere between the two Koreas. South Korea accepted the U.S. military’s 'Strategic Flexibility', conceded to U.S. hegemony by partially attending 'Proliferation Security Initiative', and dramatically built up its military forces.

We also find it problematic that domestic politics and the media define the North Korean missile launches as a failure of South Korea's 'engagement policy' and initiate a hard-line approach toward the North. The current North Korean missile launch crisis is the result of the U.S. government's hard-line policy and North Korea's improper response to it.

Given these circumstances, we call on other nations to solve today's crisis in a wise manner, and work towards creating a peaceful atmosphere. Below, we list our following demands:

First, North Korea should immediately give up its belligerent rhetoric. Stating "more tests are on the way" only provokes the crisis, and creates an unfavorable atmosphere for negotiations. Moreover, it should show its willingness to cover comprehensive issues on the Korean Peninsula including the missile issue at the upcoming inter-Korean ministerial talks scheduled for July 11.

Second, it has already been proven that the U.S. policy based on sanctions and pressure is unable to resolve North Korean nuclear and missile problems. Therefore, the U.S. government should return to the negotiating table with North Korea and show respect for North Korea's own sovereignty. We are opposed to sanctions against North Korea, whether unilaterally from the U.S., or through a UN resolution, which will only deteriorate the current crisis. Moreover, we urge the U.S. to actively participate in any form of talks with North Korea.

Third, the Japanese government should reverse its tough stance against North Korea. For example, it should reverse its decision to block the entry of the North Korean cargo vessel ManKyungBong and its sponsorship of U.N. sanctions against the North. In addition, Japan should actively take part in talks with North Korea to resolve the Japanese kidnapping issue, and resume normal DPRK-Japan diplomatic relations. As Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi had suggested prior to the nuclear crisis, the Japanese government should offer to play the role of mediator between the U.S. and North Korea to foster trust and the improvement of relations.

Fourth, the South Korean government should retract its decision to suspend humanitarian assistance to the North, including rice and fertilizer shipments, and should keep economic assistance and cooperation intact. Any intention to induce changes in North Korean policy through sanctions and coercion are in violation of the basic principles of an ‘engagement policy’, and reduces the opportunities for South Korea’s involvement, thereby adversely affecting inter-Korea relations. The South Korean government should see the firing of missiles as an opportunity to take more of a lead role in resolving North Korean issues.

Fifth, the international community, including the six-party talk participants, should incorporate six-party talks with parallel bilateral talks between the U.S. and North Korea. The U.S. held bilateral talks with all other 6 party members except North Korea. The United States’ refusal to hold direct talks with the North raises suspicion whether the U.S. really has any intention in solving problems with North Korea. In order to resume the six-party talks and achieve success, we believe the U.S. and North Korea must exchange their concerns and break their state of distrust through direct talks.

Finally, we like to make an earnest request to our people, media, and politicians. It is certain that the North Korean missile launches have a negative impact on South Korea’s economy and security. However, this is not a consequence of South Korea’s 'engagement policy', but a result of North Korea’s improper reaction towards a U.S.-backed hard-line policy. In that sense, South Korean politicians and media should not take a tougher policy approach towards the North

We reiterate our concerns over the North Korean missile launches and urge other nations, including South Korea, to turn the possible ‘crisis’ caused by the missile tests into an ‘opportunity’.


2006. 7. 10

Korea Youth Corps, Green Korea United, People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, Civil Network for a Peaceful Korea, Korea Women's Associations United, Women Making Peace, National Council of YMCAs of KOREA, Korean Federation for Environmental Movement

A victory against the proliferation of irregular work?

I'm not sure hat the full implications of this might be, but it seems that the government has made an announcment saying it would regularize 320,000 public workers.

[Aug 9th: UPDATE: Make that, officially, 54,000: here's the link to a Hankyoreh article on the topic]

Now this is quite signficant because (1) the government employee's union (remember in Korea there is a distinction between public employee's and civil servants in terms of status) has remained illegal and faces a lot of persecution for advocating for rights -- you may remember that I mentioned the seizure of public employees assets for illegal strikes in a 2005 article I wrote here (this doesn't mean that this work will stop as this agreement says nothing about the basic labour rights of government employees--see this statement of solidarity within public sector here); and (2) it sets a precident for private employers.

Now, I'm going to keep the question mark in the title above because I'm really not sure how this will be implemented and what the union response is and/or will be. I'll keep you posted though. For now, it seems interesting. I might even add that it could help some of Korea's economic woes by increasing domestic demand. Not sure what the effects will be in manufacturing though, as far as I know this form of demand stimulation does help the economy turn over but still leaves other long term prospects up for grabs. Readers are invited to whey in with their own opinions. Below I'll reprint the press realease from the Korean International Labour Foundation (KOILAF).


Agree[ment] on Granting Regular Worker’s Status to 320,000 Non-regular Workers in Public Sector

Comprehensive Measures to be announced in August … 200 billion won to be reflected in the next year budget

The government and the ruling Uri Party agreed on July 24th , 2006 to hire non-regular workers of public sector who work full-time on a regular basis as regular employees.

According to a news report from Labor Today on 25th, the government and the ruling Uri Party held a labor policy consultation with attendance of Kim Han-gil, floor leader and Lee Sang-soo, Labor Minister in the National Assembly, and agreed to come up with comprehensive measures regarding non-regular workers in August in order to make an example for private companies by preventing exploitation of 320,000 non-regular workers in public sector and eliminating discrimination sustained by non-regular workers.

On that day, the government reported the result of a comprehensive survey of the utilization and treatment for non-regular workers in public sector, which was conducted during the first half of this year. The governing Uri Party concluded that not many irregular workers were used in professional areas whereas many were used on a full-time and regular basis, and discrimination existed in terms of wage and welfare, and outsourcing service contracts fell far short of the market standard.

The government and Uri Party agreed to develop regulations with regard to utilization of non-regular workers to use as a guideline for reasonable workforce operation. In particular, the Party urged the government to △ make it mandatory for public organizations to hire non-regular workers who work full-time on a regular basis as regular employees △ eliminate discrimination in accordance with a bill of non-regular workers which is pending in the parliamentary Legislation and Judiciary Committee △ correct illegal use of non-regular workers or unreasonable employment contract with low wage, if any.

Officials expected that the comprehensive plan would cost the government and state-run entities an additional 200 billion won annually, and agreed to reflect it in the next year budget. To handle this matter, an inter-ministerial body will soon be established.

Rep. Je Jong-geel, chairman of a committee on social policies at the Uri Party, said in a briefing after the meeting, “the government will come up with a comprehensive plan by August. Some contract workers serving in ‘essential’ positions will be rehired as regular employees, and discrimination in wage and working conditions will be removed. As the first step, efforts will be made to grant regular job status to about 70% of non-regular workers.

POSCO strike over, union leaders under arrest

Well, the irregular worker strike is over at POSCO for the moment. There were some last minute negotiations and the union left without being attacked, it seems. However, the government is now going after the leadership. Here is an update from the Hankyoreh:

Warrant sought for striking construction workers
Union members occupied company office for over a week

Arrest warrants were sought for members of the Pohang construction workers’ union who occupied the local headquarters of Posco, a major South Korean steel manufacturer, for more than a week.

On July 23, local police in North Gyeongsang Province asked a court to issue arrest warrants for 58 union leaders, including Lee Ji-kyung, 39, head of the Pohang construction union, and a 45-year-old official of the Korea Confederation of Trade Unions, only identified as his surname Kim. The charges range from assault to interfering with business.

In addition, police were investigating without detention a total of 79 union members on the same charges, and are looking for four leaders of the Pohang construction union, including a 40-year-old deputy leader of the union, only identified as Ji.

The four union leaders "are suspected of illegally occupying Posco headquarters since the afternoon of July 13 and interfering with the company’s operations while destroying office materials," police said. The union ended their occupation on July 21.

The number of those who will face charges is expected to rise as police plan to summon about 2,400 union workers who have since returned home as "simple participants" in the activities.

Meanwhile, Posco plans to resume operations at its headquarters from July 24 after completing a large-scale cleanup of the building by July 23.

You gotta love South Korean labour relations

Here's a quick story that has kept flasing on the news the last few days. Subcontractors unions have occupied the POSCO headquarters in Pohang as management has hired scabs. The South Korean state, rather than pondering why it's labour policies seem to be generating protest after protest each week, decided to send in the troops (in this case the 1001 riot police force -- the scary ones). The scenes on TV look fairly medieval. Apparently the workers are still there though as they blockaded themselves on the roof and in the upper floors.

From the Hangyoreh:


Police enter POSCO to disperse striking workers

Police infiltrated the main office of POSCO, the world's fifth-largest steelmaker, on Saturday to disperse about 2,000 unionists from its subcontractors who had entered the third day of a sit-in strike there.

The joint union of several construction companies in Pohang, all of which are POSCO's subcontractors, have occupied the steelmaker's head office since Thursday, claiming POSCO
has obstructed their legal labor action, such as a demand for a pay raise, by requesting police involvement and providing substitute workers to their companies. The sit-in has so far incurred an estimated loss of 100 billion won (US$104.9 million) for POSCO.

The unionized workers went on strike at the end of last month after their wage negotiations were stopped. Police mobilized some 6,900 troops before dawn to remove barricades set up by
the unionists and made their way into the building, which was occupied by unionists. After arresting several unionists on the first and second floors, police are confronting the remaining strikers on the upper floors and rooftop of the building.

The police said they are trying to persuade them to disperse voluntarily, saying force is their last option.

However, clashes between police and unionists are likely to take place later, as a growing number of policemen with clubs have arrived around the building, apparently for a full-scale operation to crack down on them.

Pohang, July 15 (Yonhap News)

FTA talks bogged down?

There are a few stories in the media about a possible bogging down of the FTA talks. I wouldn't deny that this is happening, but I would certainly not get rosy as to either their collapse or an alternative arrangement springing forth. Much of the disagreement is over pharmaceuticals, the stance of the US on which is kinda scary. It is really opposed to a new drug pricing system (which most civilized countries have) and continues to boycott meetings over this issue. One American magazine has said this is dangerous not just for Koreans but for Americans too because it is trying to set new global norms that will eventually make medicines more expensive for Americans too because they are pressuring other countries to raise the prices. For more on this issue see James Love's story at the Huffington Post. There's a great overall account of this issue and other negotiating points at the Hankyoreh. For shorter story on the snags from the Korea Times, click the link.

Korea-US FTA protest photos at gomediaction

Gomediaction seems to have a great english post of photos on their site. Also a map where some of the protests occurred. Here's the link. VoP has lots of other photos too, from some of the other areas of confrontation around city hall, anguk station and nearer the blue house. CINA has used some of these in his report in English.

Kotaji's report on Korea-US FTA protests

Kotaji has prepared a post on yesterday's protest which I'll reprint here as it saves me a bit of time and you can get the general impression. I'll post the photos when I get them though. -J

From the frontlines

This post is also over at the Tomb.

The battle against neo-liberal globalisation brought Seoul to a halt today
as at least 60,000 people came out onto the streets in the pouring rain
to protest against the current round of FTA talks between the US and
South Korea. Reports here and here.

Got some firsthand impressions of the action from Jamie who seems to have been a little closer to the frontlines than I would probably have been:

…not exactly sure [how many were there], a lot of people though. Four simultaneous rallies: City Hall, Seoul Station, and two other locations… so wet… rain, plus water cannon and tear gas were used… got stuck in a stampede, cops must have charged 8 meters, anyway we were too close to the action so got a small cloud [of gas], but it was just vinegar smelling, did nothing.

So, the protest marched to Kwanghwamun [near the US Embassy], fought the buses, then we made our way up to a back alley, and, surprisingly, were able to burst out and occupy the main street, the student groups kept on running to get to the Blue House [presidential residence], got about 800 feet away from Kwanghwamun but were blocked too much, went back, ended the thing in front of the US embassy…

[I’m still] trying to figure out what this localized gas was, there was some water cannon too when people were fighting the buses… they nearly killed some kids moving a bus to block the road when the crowd burst out the side street, they stopped the bus though, shoving lots of bamboo poles at the driver through the window, must have hurt.

People were able to seize some riot shields too… man people were wet, everyone had a rain poncho…

If you want to read Jamie in a more analytical frame of mind check out his piece on Korean Neo-liberalism and Empire at ZNet. There is another eye-witness report here, while over at Frog in a Well, Pak Noja posted some thoughts on the economics of Korean agriculture and what liberalisation means for Korean farmers.

Parking Korean babylon style.

The Korean union federation (KCTU) is apparently planning big strikes over the FTA in November, so watch this space.

What a wet day!

Despite record rainfall, thousands of protestors came out to protest the HanMi FTA (or Korea-US FTA depending on what language you use). Anyways, I'm still drying off, but I'll post some pictures of the event in the coming day or so.

In the meantime here is a report from yonhap.

Tens of thousands rally in Seoul despite rain

Despite torrential rains, tens of thousands of South Korean activists and farmers staged anti-U.S. rallies Wednesday, denouncing their government's free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations with Washington as a form of "U.S. economic colonialism."

About 70,000 anti-globalization protesters gathered in front of Seoul City Hall after holding separate demonstrations across the capital, said officials at the Korean Alliance against Korea-U.S. FTA, an association of anti-FTA civic groups in South Korea.

Police estimated the number of protesters at 37,000.

Police said they deployed more than 20,000 riot police to prevent the rallies from turning violent, but there were no immediate reports of injuries and arrests, police officers said.

The protesters plan to march towards the presidential office of Cheong Wa Dae later Wednesday, raising concern over possible clashes with riot police.

During the rally near the city hall, the protesters, clad in raincoats, chanted anti-American slogans such as "We oppose U.S. economic colonialism." They also held pickets which read, "The FTA is handing over our entire economy to the U.S." and "The economic invasion. War threats. The U.S. is an axis of evil."

South Korean farmers, laborers and activists have conducted anti-FTA demonstrations since Monday, when South Korea and the U.S. opened their second round of FTA talks in Seoul with the aim of signing a deal by early next year. The protesters say the FTA would threaten their livelihood.

The afternoon rally snarled traffic in central Seoul, and is expected to cause further congestion during the evening rush hours as heavy rains battered the Seoul metropolitan area.

Seoul received nearly 200 millimeters of rain as of 3 p.m. and weather officials forecast the downpour would continue until Thursday morning.

In a related development, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, a major umbrella trade union, implemented a six-hour strike Wednesday to protest the ongoing trade liberalization talks.

The labor union claimed 170,000 union members participated in the walkout but police put the number at 74,000.

A group of U.S. labor activists have also been participating in the anti-FTA rallies in South Korea.

"The gap between the rich and the poor has increased in every country that has concluded a free trade agreement with the U.S."

said Jeff Vogt, policy director for the AFL-CIO, at a press conference. "It logically follows how it will happen in Korea."

Not all South Koreans oppose the FTA talks. About 300 pro-business activists rallied Wednesday to support the government's move to sign the trade deal.

This week's trade talks are to continue until Friday. The first round was held in Washington last month.

Seoul, July 12 (Yonhap News)

One more thing... Here's a good story that details more the unequal fta negotions over medicine and medical patents, creepy.

Korean Neoliberalism and Empire

My take on the Kor-US FTA negotiations and protests... Over at ZNET for July 11th.

Korean Neo-liberalism and Empire: South Korean social movements struggle against Korea-US Free Trade Agreement.

July 10, 2006

Anti-corporate globalization protests are scheduled in Korea this week as part of larger efforts by Korean social movements to confront the effects of neo-liberalism on the Korean economy and society. The protests are in response to the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement (KorUS FTA) talks that are coming to Seoul this week after a first round of negotiations in Washington in June. This round of negotiations will take place between June 10-14th.

Korean groups are mobilizing here against what they see not only as an unequal negotiating framework between the US and Korea, but also against growing social polarization in the wake of escalating market reforms since the 1997 financial crisis.
Protests have continued for months but will swell this week with a protest of 100,000 planned for Wednesday, June 12th in front of the Silla Hotel in downtown Seoul where the negotiations are being held.

Going Bilateral

These protests add to a trajectory of dissent against neo-liberalism in East Asia that has been growing steadily in recent years. In November and December 2005, Korean farmers played a pivotal role in organizing against the APEC and WTO summits that were held that year in Busan, South Korea and in Hong Kong. These protests continued a tendency to confront capital by protesting it as it organizes regionally and globally, but the present moment seems to indicate that in East Asia, capital seems to be adopting a new strategy of going bilateral.

Since 1999, however, the WTO has faced difficulty in its negotiations over a generalized framework, both because of the increasing public criticism it received since the 1999 Seattle protests, and from the resistance it has met internally from developing countries, as well as powerful countries in the North that defend their own agricultural subsidies while seeking to open agricultural markets in the South.

Instead of new general agreements, the US and other countries in particular, including South Korea, have been negotiating bilateral agreements in recent years. These situations often pit smaller countries against bigger ones that have the state capacity to generate stronger concessions bilaterally than they may have through a multilateral negotiating framework in which poorer countries have been able to rally together on key issues and where anti-corporate globalization activists have been able to mount strong public criticism.

As a host of these bilateral trade agreements are being negotiated simultaneously, it becomes difficult for social movement groups to keep pace with the negotiation areas of each agreement, and thereby raise an effective counter-movement. Nonetheless, bilateral agreements also raise the possibility for new forms of solidarity and social protest as it presents activists with the challenge of effectively linking to groups affected by the negotiations and by neo-liberalism in general.

Kor-US FTA: Advance concessions and continuing negotiations

The key issue in the KorUS FTA negotiations this session will be the opening of the Korean rice market as well as the market on other agricultural foodstuffs such as beef, seafood and produce. This issue in particular has upset many Korea farmers as South Korea has been gradually increasing its quotas for foreign grown rice over the past few years. These farmers have responded that their small-scale plots cannot compete with the industrial agriculture found in regions such as California. In the fall two farmers killed themselves by drinking pesticide in protest to the governments passing of a rice quota increase while another two died as a result of wounds incurred from police during a protest outside the national assembly on November 15th.

Farmers have not been the only ones affected by preparatory restructuring in advance of the current FTA negotiations. South Korea’s ‘Screen Quota” policy which has been a boon for its domestic film industry was lowered previous to the May negotiations, prompting protests by several Korean A-list actors. After the announcement of the reduction of the Screen Quota this winter, actors and other entertainment industry professionals allied with Korean farmers in what they proclaimed as a common fight against further liberalization.

Though Korea has also made advance concessions in these and other areas, such as pharmaceutical drug pricing and communications policy, it appears to be fighting an uphill battle to get recognition on two of its key goals: recognition for products manufactured in its joint-industrial zone with North Korea, and a commitment on US visas for 5000 Korean professionals per year. The Korean delegation made little success in these areas in the June negotiations and they will remain on the back burner for the current session. This leaves perhaps automobiles as the only main area left in which it the Korean delegation may be generally successful.

State Power and Public Opinion

A common feature of free trade agreements from NAFTA to the WTO has been to use executive power to fast track negotiations and to keep such agreements from being thoroughly debated in the public sphere. South Korea’s president has sworn that it is his personal mission to get this FTA completed before his term is up in 2008 and President Bush is eager to complete the agreement (the largest for the US since NAFTA) before his fast-track negotiation authority is up in mid-2007. To this end, both countries have attempted to downplay opposition and the South Korean government has promised to deal sternly with any violent demonstrations.

Yet South Korean civil society and media have reported that opposition to the FTA is not a marginal phenomenon and that a majority the population would like the negotiations to be slowed down, if not stopped altogether. An editorial in the Hangyoreh newspaper on July 8th argued that the government has misunderstood public opposition to the FTA and risks generating further opposition if it does not listen to public opinion:

“Opposition to the FTA does not merely encompass a small part of the population. A recent opinion poll showed that 52 percent of the public thinks the signing of the FTA will harm the nation and up to 90 percent said the pace of FTA negotiations should be slowed. The government cannot persuade the people with abstract rhetoric that the nation’s social systems and international competitiveness will be enhanced, nor can it persuade them by gathering data favorable to its stance. The government did not disclose publicly the results of the first round of negotiations. Under such circumstances, it is public deception for the government to say that it would "collect opinions from every walk of life" and reflect those opinions at the negotiating table [1].”

In addition to fast track negotiation and the refusal of public disclosure, a key feature of neo-liberal restructuring in Korea has been the use of state power to limit the rights of workers by expanding irregular employment and limiting the right to strike for government and temporary employees (many of whom are de-facto permanent workers). These displays of state power, though not directly reducible to individual agreements, correspond to overall trajectories of neo-liberal labour market reform and have generated strong protest from Korea’s labour movements, including both its corporatist and more radical elements.

Growing Financial Hegemony

South Korean social movements have reason to advocate caution as to the signing of any new major agreement that may open its market to increased capital and product flows as happened in the wake of the 1997 crisis, especially by making agreements that would expand trade and ownership in key services such as finance. Private capital, especially finance capital, has been increasing its influence over the Korean economy as of late, and this has also led to problems of capital outflow and increased social polarization.

The restructuring following the 1997 crisis included the partial liberalization of the banking sector and the selling off other Korean assets. This restructuring has benefited both domestic and foreign capitalists. In recent months, Korea posted a monthly current account deficit that was the biggest in the 9 years since the crisis. According to a Korea Times article in May, the central bank attributed the deficit to a dividends payout to foreign investors, which amounted to $2.28 billion for April [2].

The financial sector has also faced capital outflow due to predation by short term foreign capital such as the Texas-based Lonestar hedge fund, which, in the wake of financial restructuring after 1997, bought the Korean Exchange Bank for $US 1.2 billion and has announced plans to sell it for 6.7 billion, prompting an investigation by South Korea’s regulator into the deflation of asset values before the purchase and the use of tax havens to minimize tax obligations. This controversy has implicated both the foreign firm that bought the bank and the domestic law firm that negotiated the deal.

Since the 1997 crisis, finance has continued to be diverted away from production towards real estate and consumer credit, fuelling a property bubble that has the government worried about a Japan-style recession. However, restructuring has left government also potentially divorced from any effective means of preventing speculation as the discipline over financial resources needed to stop it has became eroded as sectors of banking and financial industries were internationalized. In other words, the government may no longer be able to fall back on its ‘developmental’ model of long-term industrial finance by leaning on the banks to support a highly leveraged industrial sector, leading to increased unemployment and pressure by the private sector to reduce wages by expanding irregular workers and limiting their rights.

Furthermore, those corporations with revenue large enough to weather the crisis are no longer dependent on the state to underwrite their bad loans, and have the increased autonomy to move jobs overseas.

Korean neo-liberalism and the politics of empire

Though the growing hegemony of finance capital may be a feature of neo-liberalism that is not distinct to the Korean case, the ways in which economic liberalization intersects with the politics of empire on the peninsular gives Korean neo-liberalism a distinct topography. Here finance, trade, and sovereignty are interwoven in a delicate balance by political forces seeking democracy and re-unification on the peninsula in the midst of the US War on Terror.

The authors of a recent manifesto by the Suyu Research Group entitled The Twilight of Empire suggest that Korea’s participation in the empire, from Iraq to Pyeongtaek, as well as the concessions made on the Kor-US FTA have come at too high of a price. They come at the cost of neglecting social polarization and environment destruction at home, and have unwittingly begun to employ nationalism to silence dissent. The authors pose this problem as a problem for the whole of society, one that has been overlooked in pursuit of development and delayed in the era of political democracy.

“The U.S.-South Korea FTA, which seems to have taken us by surprise, has been tailing the young, the disabled, women, migrant workers, non-regular workers, and all the creatures of the tidal flats [that have been redeveloped in the Saemangum Reclamation Project] for a much longer time, under the guise of GDP, market competition, neo-liberalism, and the calculation of economic profits. We must realize that our society has encouraged or neglected the exploitation of these minorities. The unimaginable scale and intensity of disaster that the U.S.-South Korea FTA entails will be the messenger that will inform us that the pain of those minorities that we have overlooked can become our own” [3].

The authors of the manifesto advocate that the struggle against the FTA should start not from the nation, but from the minorities, the masses, and the multitude that they describe above. This is a valid point that needs to be stressed over and over. However, the Kor-US FTA may also be a key moment in determining how far those democracy activists that have become part of the state may be able to expand democratization into the economic sphere while avoiding the twin perils of empire and neo-liberalism. This is a crucial question, the success of which will surely depend on the outcome of the protests taking place outside of the state that will be escalating in Seoul all this week.


[1] The Hangyoreh. [Editorial] Nation faced with split due to free trade agreement. July 8, 2006. (http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_editorial/139627.html)

[2] Korea Times. Current Account Deficit Biggest in Nine Years. May 26, 2006. (http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/biz/200605/kt2006052617150211910.htm)

[3] Manifesto from the Suyu Research Institute on the S.Korea-USA FTA plans - The Twilight of Empire? Posted at (http://www.froginawell.net/korea/2006/05/manifesto -from-the-suyu-research-institute-on-the-skorea-usa-fta-plans-the-twilight-of-empire/).
May 12, 2006.

One Big Union?

Here's a story from the Hangyoreh on the recent vote to create an industry union among auto workers. I especially like the last line of the story, and am curious to see how things pan out because of it.

Hyundai, Daewoo, Kia company unions vote to industrialize: move means membership in large scale groups, more leverage

The company-based labor unions of Hyundai Motors Corp., GM Daewoo Auto & Technology, and Kia Motors, known as some of the strongest company-wide unions in South Korea, chose to be absorbed into some of the nation’s larger industrial unions.

The Federation of Korean Metal Workers Trade Unions, under the Korea Confederation of Trade Unions, said that out of 39,966 unionized workers at Hyundai Motor participating in voting yesterday, 71.5 percent supported becoming part of the federation, one of Korea’s largest industrialized unions. To transition into an industrialized union, more than two-thirds of unionized workers must back the action.

Along with the Hyundai Motors Corp. union, the 9,000-member union of GM Daewoo and 10,000-strong union of Kia Motors also voted to become part of industrialized unions. Other unions, such as those at Doowon Precision Mechanics, Jinkwang ENC, and Daewoo Automobile Sales followed suit. Under the current wave of support, the Federation of Korean Metal Workers Trade Unions has swelled to more than 100,000 members.

“The move is meaningful because it has paved the way for the unions to strengthen their alliance in resolving labor problems beyond company walls, and in narrowing the gap between haves and have-nots,” said Lee Soo-bong, a spokesman at the Korea Confederation of Trade Unions.

However, Lee Dong-ung, senior vice president of the Korea Employers Federation, raised concern that the move may spark harsher labor-management relations. “Damages will occur due to repetitive negotiations, strikes, and other work stoppages,” Lee said.

Labor circles expect the move to prompt other company-based labor unions to pick up speed in switching over to an industrialized union.

Park Yoo-sun, planning director of the Korea Confederation of Trade Unions, said, “By October or November this year, more agreements will be made by confederations to switch to an industrialized union.”

By 2008, the industrialized unions will be integrated into four to five bigger industrialized unions, Park said.

The move is expected to bring big changes to labor negotiations between union and company management, allowing each labor union to raise questions about the industry’s overall problems. In addition, temporary workers, who have not been allowed membership in most company-wide labor unions, will be accorded the rights of union members.

KorUS FTA -- More Materials

An earlier post on the Korea America Free Trade Agreement negotiations currently underway in Washington linked to a number of info sources on the topic but I just thought I would add a few more.

The KCTU, FKTU, AFL-CIO and other American unions have a realeased a joint statement which you can read here; the KCTU has their own statement which you can view here as well. The documents point to deteriorating labour standards in both countries, points which have been well supported in both a recent speech by the head of the KCTU and an online solidarity campaign by the Building and Wood Workers International.

It seems that there is still a lot of resistance to casualization and irregularization of work in South Korea. The documents above point to some of the recent high profile cases such as the locked out KTX workers who have faced police violence in recent weeks. Just this week a union of both regular, irregular, and contract workers was also formed, becoming, at least formally, the first of its kind.

As for the FTA negotiations themselves, seems the national assembly is coming under pressure from many sectors, especially agriculture, for concluding a very whimpy first round, conceding to the US even in areas of apparent strength.

Korean Migrant Worker News -- Courtesy MWTV

As you can see by my volume of posts today, I'm finally back to regular posting and am trying to clear away a backlog of stuff that I've left by the way side while I moved. As most will probably know, it is really difficult to keep up to date with Korean social movement news in english because organizations switch sites frequently or loose steam and pass the job onto other groups. Years ago Base 21 was doing a great job, but eventually that too fell by the wayside, all its reporting lost, I guess, as the site now seems vacant.

Anyways, I just thought I'd mention the lovely job that Migrant Workers Television has been doing by broadcasting multilingual migrant worker (and some Korean) news each week. To top that off they reprint their scripts on their website (http://www.mwtv.or.kr). Seems there has been lots of news to report recently, including some positive news on changes in the law around foreign victims of domestic violence. There is also the negative news of more harrasment against migrants on the job the tragic injuries of migrants fleeing immigration crackdoes. For these stories and more please click on the links for MWTV english for May. Click here for their 20th broadcast script and here for their 19th.

Blind Masseurs Opposing Court's Decision

I had to post something briefly on this issue because I keep seeing video of blind masseurs jumping into the Han River off the Mapo bridge near where I live. They seem to have built a hanging platform and are occupying it. Police in boats seem to pick up whoever jumps.

As the Choson reports "

The Constitutional Court by a majority of seven to one [last] Friday ruled against a law that reserves the occupation of masseur for the blind or vision-impaired.

The court reasoned the law infringes on the freedom of occupation stipulated in the Constitution.

The ruling clears the way for anyone to become a masseur but may threaten the livelihood of vision-impaired masseurs. The Korean Masseurs Association said the ruling was tantamount to depriving visually disabled people of the only means to make a living. “It is the same as telling us to leave the country,” it said.

And, according to Arirang TV, protestors gathered in front of the Constitutional Court in Seoul on Monday. I also saw footage of them blocking the subway as well on tuesday, delaying trains substantially.

Curious how this issue will be resolved. This was the first I had heard of it.

In other news, the GNP seems to have won most of the municipal and regional seats in yesterday's election, but you can read about that just about anywhere.

Korea-America FTA -- Resources

I've come across a few resources lately on the Korea-America FTA that is currently being negotiated. Bilaterals.org, a site that is tracking the proliferation of bilateral trade agreements (a suppossed alternative to both the collective strength of developing countries and regional blocs at the WTO, as well as the WTO's own inertia) has a special page on the Korea - US FTA that seems to be updated frequently.

The Korean Alliance against the Korea-US FTA has an english site (NoFTA); however, besides a small inaugral position paper, there is not much content as of yet. Their Korean site, however, seems to have quite a lot of info. Gomediaction has an advertisement for their upcoming protest on June 3rd as well as info a number of events planned around the visit of a Korean delegation to the US to publicize the problems of the Han-Mi (Korea US) FTA.

Finally, the Korea Economic Institute (which seems to be a lobbying organization based in Washington, DC) has a US-Korea FTA Resource Center page with lots of links to testimony from various industry groups and other stakeholders -- well, uhem, actually more 'shareholders' than stakeholders seem to be represented.

UPDATE -- June 5th: Here's a longer story in the Asia Times on the arrival of the Korean delegation and some of the more conflictual negotiating areas.

Pyeongtaek Update: Letter from village headman

As a way to update our earlier posts on the continuing Pyeongtaek protests in South Korea, here's the link to a posting over a frog in a well from one of the arrested village 'headmen' involved in the protest.

High and Low

It's been a while since I've done some serious posting on this blog, mainly as I've been settling in to South Korea to do my doctoral research (yes, I do have a life outside of the blogosphere). At any rate, with jet lag and other adjustments having been made I'm only now able to begin contemplating issues and posting information. Thus, I have to apologize for all the reprints as of late, I was starting to feel like the Korea Herald's newswire. Then again, this blog is still largely a current affairs/events type blog, so what can you do?


Although I try to make my posts more newsy, the following are some general points on the issue of irregular labour which we've been covering quite a lot over the past year.

A while back while I was doing some research on the net on the non-regular workers bill I came across two interesting articles in the Korea times about the opposition of employer's groups to the upcoming bill on irregular employment. As you know that non-regular workers bill has been consecutively delayed due to opposition from all sides. The bill will basically put into law much of the flexibilization that already exists and pervades Korean society and to which labour are, justly, opposed and who feel the chance will have been missed to create new foundations for equitable rights and status for all workers. Albeit the bill is designed to iron out inequalities in some areas of contingent work, by putting minimums on the amount of time an employee can work temporarily in one workplace, but, without a general principle of 'equal pay for equal work' included in the bill it is hard to figure out how to prevent institutionalizing a dual labour market structure whereby some workers enjoy solid benefits and others are left precarious, even while doing the same job. By most indicators, inequality -- which is quite easily to see just by looking at the contrasts in housing type, mostly between middle class apartments and poorer houses or villas, in and around Seoul -- continues to expand, the topic of recent and fairly well done piece in the Korea times.

Now, the government may argue that it will pick up the slack by offering benefits in key areas of social security in return for the consent of labour groups to flexibilization, however, government policymakers aside, the surprise here is that private capital also seems to be against the formalization of flexibility and would prefer a business as usual approach, at least from what I can gander from the press. Business as usual here would mean that the contingent status of perhaps millions of workers would remain in a legal loophole, in other words, the business community has no coherent policy except to ignore the laws that currently exist and advocate that new laws not be created, thus relegating, or legally abandoning, the situation of contingent workers to very grey legal status. Seems the cost of having to pay those workers who have worked at particular firms full time for multiple years the full pay they deserve -- ie regularizing their employment status as a trade off for greater concessions for flexibility in the future and in other segments of the economy -- is not even viewed as preferable.

Employers actually threatened a "strike by capital" against the bill last February, claiming that they would continue to move overseas if the government continued to push the bill. Though such threats are normally kept in the back room, it seems that Korean employers were fine with printing this in the Korea Times which makes one wonder a bit how much they care about their public image or the role they want to be seen as playing in Korea's often very nationalist political economy. Or perhaps, the reason why the political economy is not seen as very nationalist these days may also have to do with the ways in the which the government is able to regulate its economy's financial structure. In other words, perhaps changes have been made that create less incentive for corporations to want to want to obey labour law once the stick of financial discipline has been removed. But this too, remains to be seen completely, and I myself, am left guessing at exactly where state capability or coherent political power in this area lies (perhaps a topic for further research).

Perhaps these are the beginning of the days when the international of capital will have to be met with a more coherent internationalization of labour, but then again, these trends are nothing new, segyehwa (or globalization) has been used quite a lot in introducing new plans and policies (remember the hub of Asia), but this form of internationalization does not normally follow a rhetoric of exit, it is more about the entry of capital. What is new, perhaps, is the way in which they being used in the public sphere as a threat of abandonment. Or maybe not, but if so, I'd like to see more examples.

Fearing another Hong Kong?

Here's an intesting story from today's Korea times. If you followed our previous posts on the Hong Kong protests in December, you'll see that the Korean government has a history of being anxious about its protestors travelling. I'm still settling down into my research role here but I'll try to provide more analysis on this issue and more in the coming weeks. -J



Activists Urged to Scrap Anti-FTA Rally in US
By Jung Sung-ki

Staff Reporter

The government on Friday urged the country’s labor organizations not to stage a rally in the United States against a proposed free trade agreement (FTA) between the two
countries.

In a joint statement issued by five cabinet
ministers concerned with the FTA, the government denounced plans by
labor groups to dispatch a group of protesters to America.

The ministers said it would seriously damage the country’s international reputation and relations between the two allies.

They said they were also concerned that the
anti-FTA protest could cause inconvenience to all Korean people as it
may have a negative effect on the Seoul’s efforts to negotiate a
visa waiver program with Washington.

``We sincerely call on the organizations
preparing the protest rally to immediately scrap the plan, which is
damaging our national image and causing concern among the
public,’’ said the statement read by Minister of Foreign
Affairs and Trade Ban Ki-moon.

Other signatories were Deputy Prime
Minister-Minister of Finance and Economy Han Duck-soo, Justice Minister
Chun Jung-bae, Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Park Hoong-soo and
Labor Minister Lee Sang-soo.

``We urge the groups to express their position
and views about the FTA negotiations through peaceful and legitimate
processes,’’ Ban said.

The statement came as a group of South Korean
activists are planning to stage a rally protesting the scheduled
Korea-U.S. FTA meeting in Washington next month.

The group consists of members of various labor
and farmers' organizations, including the progressive Korean
Confederation of Trade Unions and the Coalition of Farmers'
Association, which sent a group of protesters to Hong Kong last
December to protest against a meeting of World Trade Organization (WTO)
ministers.

The statement said it is
``undesirable’’ for a handful of interest groups to
entirely oppose a crucial trade agreement for the future growth of the
country’s economy just because the pact is expected to create a
few problems.

``Free trade agreements are fast becoming a
global trend that no one can resist. The government has been working to
sign free trade agreements (with other nations) to prepare for the
changing global circumstances and to further advance our products in
the world market,’’ it said.

The statement said further liberalization, or an
FTA with the United States, was inevitable for South Korea, which
depends on foreign countries for more than 70 percent of its economy
and other affairs.

More than 180 FTAs have been signed between
countries worldwide and over 50 percent of global trade is now
conducted between nations relying on such trade agreements, officials
said.

Seoul and Washington jointly announced the start
of negotiations for an FTA in February, while setting the deadline for
the negotiations as June 2007. The first round of talks is to be held
next month.

In a related development, the government has
requested Washington's cooperation and leniency regarding the South
Korean protesters.

Washington replied that it will try to explain
U.S. law on street rallies to the South Koreans and that the United
States guarantees protest rallies as long as they are peaceful, said
Chung Dal-ho, ambassador for overseas and Korean affairs at the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Chung said the government cannot and does not
wish to block peaceful rallies by South Koreans in other countries, but
said the ministers' joint statement is a ``sincere
request’’ for the organization to stop the plan because its
rally is highly likely to become violent considering its past record.

Onward!

I'm in the middle of a move right now, so I have not had much time to update recently. Below is a reprint from the Donga on recent mayday protests. By the end of this week I should by in SK so look forward to some more detailed and original updates soon. I've also recently switched to a mac so there may be some glitches for a bit (a perhaps a move to a different blog provider) but we'll see how that goes... --J




Unions Celebrate May Day With Protests



MAY 02, 2006 03:00
by Eun-Woo Lee ( libra@donga.com)


The Korea Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) and Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU) held various events and gatherings yesterday, marking the 116th Labor Day.

The KCTU hosted an event to commemorate World Labor Day, arguing for the abolition of the bill on irregular workers and a roadmap for advancing laws and systems on labor-management relations and free medical service and education, and against a Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. The event started at 3:00 p.m. in Seoul Plaza in front of Seoul City Hall with more than 10,000 people in attendance.


The KCTU announced in the event, “Neo-liberalism is threatening workers’ existences, and we should set up strong battle lines to fight against it.”


Prior to the gathering, each union held preliminary rallies in Cheonggye Plaza and Seoul Station Plaza in the morning.


For its part, the FKTU hosted a marathon commemorating the Labor Day jointly with Sohn Ki-jeong Foundation. The marathon started in Jamsil Stadium, Seoul at 10:00 a.m.


The sporting event, which marked the 60th anniversary of the FKTU’s establishment and the 70th anniversary of Sohn’s winning a gold medal in the marathon in the Berlin Olympics, attracted about 12,000 workers and citizens.


The two organizations also held events celebrating Labor Day in other major cities, including Incheon, Busan, Daegu and Gwangju.


Meanwhile, Labor Minister Lee Sang-soo said in an interview with a radio program on May 1, “If the passage of the bill on irregular workers is delayed, measures for (labor) reform will also be delayed.”


The bill was expected to pass the National Assembly in April, but its passage is being delayed due to conflicts between the ruling and the opposition parties over the amendment for the private schools law and the opposition from the Millennium Democratic Party.