disgusting

Well, I'm still out of the country and away from speedy internet connections, but I'll have better access in a few days so I'll try to post more on some current issues.

Something that I've been meaning to do is to check to see what happened to some of the unionists arrested for protesting the labour bills that were passed on dec. 1st. Last time I checked, Hur Young Gu, (vice?) chairman of the KCTU, and founder of Speculative Capital Monitoring Center Korea (something like ATTAC) had been arrested. If anyone has an update please post it as a comment.

For now, however, I'll leave you with the following link to a story on punitive fines handed out to protesting teachers. Basically they were ordered to pay around 1000 dollars to each student and their parents. This sort of practice for dealing with strikes and protests (often called son hae bae sang) has been on the increase in recent years. Indeed, the monetary total of these fines is quite large compared to almost all other countries. Most of the time this just leads to more acrimonious strikes until the fine is rescinded or the union dissolves. At any rate, it is a practice that smacks of collective punishement to me, and is something that needs to be addressed.

Migrant Worker News Roundup

I'm going reprint the latest MWTV news as it really sums up some of the current issues going on in the migrant movement these days. MWTV always impresses me as they put out concise, up to date news in 7 or more languages every few weeks. Really keeps one up on what's going on here, for migrants at least. It is too bad there aren't similar sites for other organizations, but I guess this speaks partly to the dynamism of migrant organizations.

Welcome to Multilingual Migrant Worker News for this, the second week of December.

I'm Linda Kwon.

...
And now, our top story...

1.
The UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants, Jorge Bustamante, just finished his visit to Korea, December 4-11. During his visit, the Special Rapporteur met with interested parties from the government and civil organizations, as well as with representatives from the Migrant Worker Trade Union to discuss the current human rights situation for migrant workers in Korea, as well as government measures taken, including legislation, regarding migrant workers and their families.

On December 8th, the Special Rapporteur held an informal meeting with relevant organizations such as the MTU and the Joint Committee for Migrant Workers in Korea. During this meeting, he strongly criticized problems with the Employment Permit System and the infringement of migrant workers' human and labor rights. Jorge Bustamante also showed his concern about the situation of migrant women and their children, and human rights violation cases against these groups. The Special Rapporteur also investigated government policies regarding migrant workers, and a final recommendation will be submitted to the UN Security Council. On December 11th, Bustamante held a press conference before leaving for his next destination, Indonesia.


2.
On December 10th, the United Nations special rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants, Jorge Bustamane visited the MTU, and discussed various issues regarding migrant workers in Korean society. About 20 people including representatives from the UN, MTU president Anwar Hussein, and migrant workers participated in the meeting. During the meeting, the special rapporteur expressed his concern about the working conditions of undocumented migrant workers and the background of their decisions to come to Korea. He also listened to cases of human rights violations from the victims. MTU president, Anwar Hussein, emphasized that the international community such as the UN must endeavor to improve migrant workers' human and labor rights in Korean society. However, Mr. Bustamante responded that as the role of the special rapporteur is limited to collecting and reporting information about the situation of migrants to the UN, it is difficult for the UN to intervene in the domestic issues of the Korean government. An MTU member said that since any direct help from the UN special rapporteur is unlikely, migrant workers need to tackle their own problems from a longterm perspective.


3.
On December 7th, migrant-worker-related civil organizations including the Migrant Worker Trade Union held a press conference to announce they would file a suit against the Korean government regarding human rights violations which have occurred during immigration raids on migrant workers. In March of this year, a Bangladeshi migrant worker, 아니서, suffered a broken arm, dislocated shoulder and nerve damage after an assault by an officer at the Incheon Immigration Bureau. Despite four operations, his injured shoulder will likely never fully recover.

As this case shows, there has been no sign of improvement on violations of human rights by the Korean government, and immigration officers continue to abuse their authority in illegal crackdowns.

아니서 said, "I am not an animal but a human. The Immigration Bureau has not given me any answers yet even though they broke my arm. Moreover, the Korean government has not taken any action nor investigated the Immigration Bureau or the officer who abused me." He seeks damages and asked for the immigration officer to be appropriately punished.


4.
On November 30th, Korea's National Assembly passed a bill banning wage discrimination between regular and temporary Korean employees. Furthermore, any contract worker who has worked for more than two years will be guaranteed status as a regular employee. Although the Korean government believes that treatment toward temporary employees will improve through this new bill, labor organizations have a different view. The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions strongly criticized the bill as bad legislation that would create a slave system for laborers due to the absence of the principle of 'equal labor, equal wage.'

--------------

5.
The 'International Migrants Day' event will be held at Seoul's Marronnier Park on Sunday, December 17th. The anniversary ceremony will begin at 3:00pm, and an arts and culture showcase titled 'A Beautiful Night with Migrant Workers' will take place at the student cafeteria of Seoul National University's Medical School starting at 5:00pm. The secretary general of the Migrant Worker Trade Union, Masum, has requested the active participation of migrant workers, their families, as well as Korean citizens in these events as one way to help protect migrant workers' human and labor rights.


6.
On December 18th, several events for migrant workers will be held across the nation to celebrate 'International Migrant Day', in conjunction with celebrations around the globe. On December 16th, a cultural event named 'Friends of Asia' will be hosted at Chungshin (충신) church in Ilsan. On December 17th, a public awareness campaign and photography exhibition by migrant workers will be held at Yeonsandong subway station in Busan. As part of the celebrations, also on the 17th, a Korean speaking contest will be held at the Korea Migrant Workers Human Rights Center in Incheon.
While there are estimated to be 400,000 migrant workers residing in Korea, a staggering 200 million migrants celebrate 'International Migrant Day' throughout the world.


In government news...

7.
Last week, the government introduced a new bill for legislation regarding migrant workers. The bill is tentatively being called the "Foreigner Treatment bill".

If this bill passes in the Parliament, it will aim to improve the living and working conditions of foreigners living in Korea, along with their families as well as political exiles already bearing official refugee status. This bill is also expected to improve the international reputation of Korea in terms labor and human rights.

But the government is anticipating wide criticism of the bill, considering the fact that the primary target group of this bill only extends to migrant workers with legal status, and leaves out the much larger group of undocumented migrant workers and political refugees without government recognized refugee status.


8.
On December 5th, 'The World Distribution of Household Wealth' was published by the United Nations University-World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER). The authors note that income inequality is becoming a serious global issue. Among the richest 1% of individuals in the world, 37% reside in the United States and 27% in Japan. In other words, this means that more than half of the richest 1% of adults in the world reside in these two countries. This 1% also owns more than half of all global household wealth according to the institute's research. In contrast, the bottom 50% of the world's adult population own barely 1% of global wealth. In addition, the research shows that 2 out of the 100 richest individuals are Korean, and the Republic of Korea shares 1.11% of global wealth.


In international trade news....

9.
The US Korea Free Trade Agreement talks have hit a snag after the Korean government found bone fragments in a portion of a beef shipment from the United States. Although bone in beef shipments is a violation of import conditions between the two countries, the U.S government criticized the Korean government's decision to send back the shipments. Under the agreement, the U.S. is supposed to export only "boneless'' beef. U.S. Department of Agriculture Deputy Under-Secretary Chuck Lambert raised concerns of a conspiracy theory that the bone fragments might have been planted.


In financial news...

10.
Despite strong intervention by the Korean government, the foreign exchange rate remains at about 920 Korean won to one U.S. dollar, a more than 10 percent decrease from the beginning of 2006. Migrant workers who transfer money to their home countries in US dollars are now paying a relatively lower commission for the service. However, the revaluation of the won stunned investors and traders from small-to-midsize businesses due to the rise in export costs. According to economists, the Korean won is forecast to remain strong against the US dollar.


In regional news...

11.
On the 7th of December, female migrants along with members from the migrant center and the YMCA gathered in Hongsung in Southern Chungchung Province to demand the discontinuation of street advertisements for Vietnamese brides. One of these banner advertisements was ripped up during the demonstration. Currently, there are around 150 migrant women who have come to live in the Hongsung area via international marriage arrangements.


12.
The National Human Rights Commission of Korea sponsored an exhibtion entitled "Different but the Same" at the Gwanghwamun gallery of Sejong Cultural Center. The work on display all centers around the theme`s of human rights, and the works represent a variety of media including comics, photography, posters and film. The exhibition was held for two weeks and the final day of the exhibition is today, Tuesday the 12th. The exhibition will travel on to Pusan next, and next year it will make stops in Gwangju and Ilsan.


13.
On December 7th, the Ansan Support Center for Migrant Workers opened near Jungang Station. The center will be operated by the Ministry of Labor and will provide migrant workers with a comfortable space and various services. For more information, please call the number on your screen.


[CLOSING]

That's all for this, the second week edition of Multilingual Migrant Worker News for December.
You can watch rebroadcasts of the news on our web site at www.mwtv.or.kr or www.rtv.or.kr.

Thanks for being with us. Good night.

busy holidays

I'll be sporadically posting over the next few weeks as I'm going back to Canada for the break.

Of course the last few weeks have busy here with a crackdown against the KCTU for protests against labour law reform and the FTA. International migrants day is today also, and there was a rally of migrant workers here in Marrioner park which was well attended considering the cold weather. You can read about these events of course at the MWTV site and the labourstart newswire on the left hand sidebar. I'll also be posting periodically, hopefully, as an attempt to keep up with the news, but my parents only have dial-up, so no promises.

labour flexibilized

Here is a more in-depth look at the recent irregular workers bills that were passed by the national assembly on dec. 1st, from the ICEM website. As it mentions:

The new irregular workers’ law will, beginning in July 2007, allow employers with 300 workers or more to utilise contract or agency workers for up to two years before they must be made permanent. The same policy becomes effective in July 2008 for companies with 100 to 299 workers. For companies with fewer than 100 workers, the two-year period takes effect in September 2008.

“South Korea has effectively opened a revolving door for the use of contract and agency workers,” said ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs. “Employers can now use, abuse, and then discard contract workers within a two-year time period, which certainly will prove to be detrimental to sustainable and family-supporting full-time direct employment inside the country.”

This, in some way, concludes the process that I described last year, but, as always, the struggle goes on.

block traffic, go to jail

Here's an english breakdown of yesterday's protests from the big press. It's good numbers and places, but once again, is more concerned about the effect of protests on traffic than it is on about the issues. The part where the police promise to hunt down those responsible for blocking traffic is especially good reading. By the indication of the article they also plan to charge the Democratic Labour Party for allowing people to hold up signs against the FTA. Lovely logic there.

Translation of Seattle Han-Mi FTA protest video

Here's a link to a recently translated video on the Seattle protests against the Korea-US free trade agreement protests. Courtesy of Chamsesang.

Another wednesday, more buses, cops, and banned protests

Well, once again, police banned rallies against the FTA in Seoul. Here is a link to a story from the Korea times. Once again, all this is because of the rallies on the 22nd, which got pretty heated in the provinces (I just found this ohmynews photo album here). The National Human Rights Commission and other groups have asked the police to allow demonstrations.

As of 630 pm, it seems that around 10 have been arrested with about 700 taking part in civil disobediance (laying down on the road) outside of myoungdong. 2,500 - 5000 attended the protest at different times according to chamsesang news. As of 8pm, the rally had turned into to a candlight vigil in front of Myoungdong Cathedral. As of 1030, there had been some police charges on the protestors in Myoungdong. Here is the link to their article, with breaking news and pictures, in Korean. I hope my translation is correct.

Earlier this morning, around 11am, 8-12 activist gathered in front of the Seodaemun police headquarters to protest the banning of the protests. Here is a short, comedic video from Chamsesang news. Notice how the police temporarily attact the protest to steal one of their props, it then starts up again. Still the police to demonstrator ratio remains 20 to 1 or more. Don't they understand the concept of overkill?

Cinema Seoulidarity -- This Saturday

An interesting event this week in both English and Korean. See you there!

Friday's rally against labour bills

As reported below, the national assembly passed three bills on irregular work last week which were oppossed by both the KCTU and minor opposition party KDLP. There was a pretty heavy protest of the bill the following day, video from which you can see here. A union rally in front of the national assembly was met with a lot of police force, including water cannon in temperatures just below freezing.

(UPDATE: Dec 5th). Here's the link to a longer video on the protests, taken by a local video activist. The fighting looked pretty fierce. I noticed the police have been using this short distance gaseous substance, it seems to me that the use of this stuff has not been documented in the English press. There is suppossed to be a moratorium on the use of tear gas, but I wonder if this violates that. Similar gas was used at other big protests this year, notably the anti-fta protests in July and at other smaller events.

NHRC comes out on Pyeongtaek

The national human rights commission issued their statement on human rights violation in the areas surrounding pyeongtaek involved in the US base expansion. All the complaints though, are around issues of police questioning and harrassment, none deal with compensation schemes or excessive violence and demolition of housing. Here's the link.
You can also read Cindy Sheehan's reflections on her visit at Znet.

Irregular worker's bill passed

Seems the irregular worker's bill was passed today. I would love to see a translation of it, seems that it may expand irregular work significantly if it has not been changed much over the past year. More on this later...

Buses, Buses, Buses

Today's anti-FTA events were not as big as last week's. The government sealed the entire city hall park with riot buses, leaving groups with no place to rally. A few thousand gathered in front of Lotte department store down the street from city hall, and there were small confrontations between the police and demonstrations, mostly the throwing of some cabbages and a few police charges. The demonstrators eventually were moved into Myoung Dong near the Cathedral where a vigil was/is being held at time of writing.

Another reason why the protests were smaller than anticipated is because police were mobilized at toll stations on the highways around the country, making it nearly impossible for protest buses to get through on the highway. The picture above is from a redian story (in Korean). Yonhap news also reported that over 200 buses full of farmers were sent back at a number of toll booths. That's a pretty aggressive crackdown.

It's Wednesday, here we go again...

Today is the third wednesday of protest in as many weeks, with two more set to come. Here is a Korea Herald article on the continuing protests. Like most articles on the FTA it ignores the substantive issues surrounding the actual agreement on focuses on the threat of violence.

Wednesday's 'People's Uprising'

(Image from the Hankyoreh. Image Caption: President Roh Moo-hyun flies back to Korea, poring over plans for the "Roh Moo-hyun Memorial."On the ground below there are fires burning, namely "real estate," "unemployment," and "education." Near the destruction, you also see massive street protests. One is in opposition to a free trade agreement (FTA) with the United States. The other is a protest by part-time and contract workers calling for better legal protection.)

Wednesday's 'people's uprising' against the FTA, and its aftermath.

(Updated and re-edited: Sunday, November 26th)

Angry demonstrations spread across the Korean penninsula Wednesday as part of a large, broad-based campaign to oppose the current negotiations over the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement and the general state of labour relations and foreign policy on the penninsula. Although it is difficult to estimate the exact number of participants, it seems clear that around or over 100,000 participated. The groups organizing the day's events had promised that it would be a mini 'people's uprising'; while that term may be a bit exagerrated, one thing seems clear, the reaction from the government to the protests has been both reactive and punitive, with the result that public sentiment will most likely continue to boil on this issue until more conciliatory or progressive policies are implemented. What follows is an assessment of wednesday's event, its reaction, and some of the tensions that informed the turnout and which will continue to shape some of these social issues for the near future.

First off, it is hard to get an official number of participants as the police, unions, and media tend to give different estimates. But, based on these and other media accounts, lets say that there was roughly 100,000 workers on strike (gov. says 56,000, KCTU says over 150,000); in addition, police reported that 80,000 participated in rallies nationwide throughout the day, with some of the largest taking place in Seoul, Kwangju, and Taejon (where scuffles turned particularly bad), but also in smaller regions such as North Kyeongsang and Gangwon provinces where things protests were just as fierce. This number could probably be increased a bit if we take into account workers who participated in the walkout but did not join demonstrations. Also, police estimations tend to be a little conservative. Anyways, it seems that somewhere in the range of 100,000 to 200,000 people participated in the events. Though this may not be the 'people's uprising' that was promised, the turnout is very very significant compared to other anti-corporate/anti-capitalist globalization protests, especially in light of recent caimpaigns by other social movements here which have mobilized tens of thousands each month. In addition, on Saturday the conservative union federation, the FKTU, which did not participate in Wednesday's protests, had its own protest of 80,000 in downtown Seoul. By comparison, the 1999 Seattle protests against the WTO were more global in scope, had very little accompanying strikes, and still only brought out a similar number -- and with a long year of organizing ahead of time.

In the aftermath of Wednesday's protests, the government has banned all future protests by the coalition of 300 groups that organized them. In addition, it has declared that it will take action against the striking teachers who participated in the event by using their vacation to attend the protest, the government has summoned over 80 protest leaders and declared that arrest warrents will be issued for them if they do not voluntarily show up. These punitive measures in combination with the numerous amount of union organizers currently in jail speak to the breakdown of the government's involvement in labour relations, and, in fact, any contentious social issue that resonates strongly with civil society and social movements. This point is hammered home in a newly translated video released this week by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions and Labournet. The film documents the repression faced by female train attendants, civil servants, and construction workers trying to organize their own unions, in each case they met with overwhelming violence. Female workers are forcibly dragged from the station, construction workers are literally thrown off of cranes and beaten in the streets, civil servants are welded into their union offices. This is a shocking video to watch, and it makes one surprised that demonstrations are not all the more massive.

In spite of all this, organizers did vow to bring out a million people nationwide, and even by the most optimistic of accounts, these numbers failed to materialize. The following is an attempt to illustrate some of the tensions that may inform these struggles, and maybe provide some reasons why it has been difficult to get even more out on the streets. It should remembered, however, that in comparision to anti-corporate globalization movements elsewhere, Korean social movements are still quite far ahead of the game in their tendancy to mobilize thousands, repeatedly, and in the face of stiff repression. However, they face difficulty in consolidating the gains from this mobilization, and the following may provide some answers as to why, even though these issues only begin to scratch the tip of the iceberg.

1. Union density declining: Korea's unionization level is at 10 year low, making it harder to get people out on the street. Labour flexibilzation has proceeded apace since the 1997 crisis, and this is creating serious difficulties for the unions as these workers are sometimes harder to mobilize as they work longer, harder hours, and are quickly becoming disillusioned with labour politics. This is compounded with a rift between the two labour federations caused mainly by the conservative union federation's negotiation of tripartite agreement with the government and business without the consent or participation of the KCTU. This tripartite (or 2.5-ite) agreement included the suspension of union pluralism for three years, thus delaying union democracy in the workplace and protecting the FKTU from having to more effectivily work for its membership in order not to lose workers to the KCTU. Within the KCTU as well there is tension as to how to mobilize these workers and what the role of irregular workers and other precarious workers should be in the labour movement is creating some difficulties. One dissapointing fact about Wednesday' s protest, and the previous week's warning strike was the migrant labour labour issued did not seem to be addressed, given that migrant labour is partially mobilized within the KCTU, it was a shame that their issues were not given a more prominent position in the rallies.

2. Real Estate Meltdown: A huge distraction right now is the real estate bubble, a problem which the Uri government has admitted it can't solve, and which has many concerned. Even the central bank has stepped in on this issue late this week. However, in my opinion, the real-estate bubble is intimately connected to overall problem of neo-liberal restructuring in the Korean economy, especially the privatization of the banks and the selling-off of a number of them, either wholly or partially, to speculative capital -- something which is 'more neo-liberal than neo-liberalism' in that the regulations for owning banks have been more lax on regulation than in some of the anglo-american countries that neo-liberal policies are often modeled on. This policy explicitly favors foreign and speculative capital by limiting bank ownership by domestic corporations. This is compounded by a lack of investment in jobs and fixed assets, a problem which has created excess liquidity in the real estate sector because, in general, financial capital seeks out what the profitable, short term investment is, and in this case it is mortgage and consumer credit. There is a lot of speculation as to why things have turned out like this, with some pointing to a capital strike by domestic chaebol, while other have pointed predation by speculation foreign capital. Not only does the real estate bubble threatens to liquidate the savings of many, the developments that many have bought into have often favored the interests of developers over environmental and local residents concerns. In fact, this form of boosterism is often closely related to the way in which industrial development has often been pursued on the penninsula, outside of the regards of the people affected by it and who labour to make a living. In a sense, Wednesday's protests were not simply about who benefits from globalization and how, but about the way in which control has been forcibly wrestled from workers, residents, and the environment. As from some of the smaller, emergent activist groups who attented the protests, I'm sure how successfully the unions have dealt with presenting these issues of both production and consumption, of working and inhabiting, as such, but it seems there is room here for a broad social consensus.

3. The FTA versus 'neo-liberalism". Expanding on the last point, it seems that the FTA is only a moment in a larger process of neo-liberal restructuring. The nationalist inflection that some of the protests have had may, in the end, be an important catalyst in getting people to look at the wider issues, but it seems to me there are many examples of neoliberalism at home that also need to be addressed, the first is the restructuring of the financial system that I mentioned above, but there are many other sets of neoliberal policies that need to be considered. Continuing corporate governance restructuring in line with neo-liberal ideas about shareholder value certainly has consequences. That is not to say that the system should only benefit the chaebol instead but why not democratize the institutional structures that exist (a mixture of family-led conglomerates and an increased amount of foreign owned corporations) in a way that is conducive to many, and then figure out a way to increase investment in key sectors that will provide jobs, growth (and hopefully not environmentally destructive development), rather than re-modeling the market on an anglo-american model: indeed, corporate transparency may certainly minimize the back door influence of the domestic chaebol on politics, but stock-market capitalism is certainly not too reconcilable with economic democracy in the end. It's ironic, but it seems perhaps that a government that came to power from the democracy movement would be the one to improve the power of private capital.

4. Trade liberalization. Domestically focused forms of neoliberalism aside, bilateral trade agreements between South Korea and other countries, particularly the US but not limited to it as the South Korean government is now negotiating several agreements at the same time. At any rate, in terms of the Korea - US free trade agreement, the key issues here are are social security and agricultural production. Culture industries are important here too, but some of the problems they are facing are also stem from the financial restructuring outlined above. These are the core issues that are the real risks from the FTA. Farmers will lose big time, they simply can't compete with American agribusiness. The fact that the US got the Korean government to agree to keep certain drugs off their pricing system is also retrograde, and sets an eerie precedent for other bilateral trade agreements.

5. Expansion of irregular work and other forms of precarity. Neoliberal labour market restructuring is also huge issue here and it stems in part from the faulty financial restructuring in the sense that smaller firms have problems investing and keeping costs down, especially as the government has gotten out of industrial policy, and continues to do so even beyond the bounds, in some cases, of the countries it models its policies on. Thus, flexibilization here is perceived as a way to give industry a chance to save on costs, but it ends up benefiting the larger corporations and keeps the smaller ones in a race to the bottom. Actually, it should be mentioned that 'irregular' work, in the legal definition of the term is only one aspect of precarious employment relations. 'Irregular work' in the sense of lack of job security, democratic voice, and sketchy workplace standards has long been a feature of the Korean model and even persists today in many sectors. Note the myriad levels of subcontracting relations. You certain see this in the areas around Dongdaemun where small basement and attic sweatshops persist in the thousands, not just in the peace market area but north of the station as well. Many or most of them in the latter are owned by the women who work in them, so, in a sense they are not irregular workers, but their situations are often more precarious than the officially 'irregular' or contract workers we so often talk about.

Finding an appropriate tactic that can organize these workers, in addition to unionized workers as well as the myriad other subjects affected by neo-liberalism, or just plain capitalism, in South Korea seems quite an urgent chore at the moment. Especially if the large labour federations want the support of these people in the battle against the policies that effect them more directly such as labour repression and the labour relations roadmap.

6. Empire: or state making and war making in NE Asia. Not to sound obtuse, but the end of the cold war on the peninsula would certainly help in the sense of limiting the governments ability to continue conscripting young men to battle labour and social movements in the streets. There still is a militarization of protest policing on the peninsula which is a direct result of the survival of cold war militarism. Of course, there is also the influence of regional inter-state competition here as well, and this keeps tensions up, and thus provides an excuse for maintaining arms, but protest could probably progress much further if only the military presence (both foreign and domestic) here could be minimized. That way you wouldn't see military operations against elderly villagers in Daechuri (as happened last may to 'seal' the area to make way for base expansion) or ten thousand police in downtown Seoul every weekend in anticipation of the next protest.

Protests ongoing

The above is by no means conclusive, and there much more depth we can go into in terms of the many tensions informing the current forms of restructuring and the protests against them. Instead, it is better to conclude by stating that even in the midst of all these tensions, Wednesday's protests, while perhaps not a 'people's uprising' were still very significant, and, in some ways, an important example for other movements in the region. Not simply for the courage and determination of South Korea's social movements, but also for their resilence in the face of crackdown and repression. I think many hope that movements in the region and internationally will show the same level of resilence, and hopefully coordinate around many of these issues in the future. Now is certainly a time for solidarity, with the Seoul government banning future demonstrations by Korea's No to FTA coalition. Nonetheless, protests will continue with protests scheduled for this coming Wednesday and the next; with the government racheting up tensions, it seems that messy confrontations will also continue.

cindy sheehan visits pyeongtaek

I meant to post on this a few days ago. Anyways, at the moment Cindy Sheehan and Code Pink are in Korea. This visit comes at a good time as 37 lawmakers submit a resolution to get Korean troops out of Iraq and things turn worse near Pyeongtaek as Chairman Kim Ji-tae of daechuri was sentenced to 2 years in prison for organizing protests against the base expansion there. Besides visiting daechuri, Sheehan will be giving talks and attending today's Anti-FTA rally.

fta demo livecast

The Korean NOFTA site will have a livecast of today's (Wednesday) demonstration up on their page. I won't be at my computer while the demo is on, but if anyone sees it, please post a comment on how the livecast turned out.

multiple demonstrations tomorrow

Well, tomorrow is an omnibus day of protest, including most of the anti-FTA and labour relations roadmap issues we've been covering some time now. Here is a quick pre-protest story from the Korea Herald, and another from KOILAF. Seems that they are having trouble seeing how all these issues are connected; nonetheless, tomorrows events should, hopefully, create more popular cognitive connections between the struggle over decent working conditions, fair rather than free trade, and democracy in the workplace. Well, let's hope that message comes across.

And now for something completely different

I've been looking into the issue of property speculation a little recently for my own research, dealing in part with the growing expansion of financial capital here on the penninsula. As most people know, there is a speculative bubble in the real-estate market that is growing and growing right now, with the consequence that a lot of property appears to be over-valued, with some of those cookie cutter concrete apartments now reaching the price of some European castles. Actually, that is what this following story from the Korean times is all about: the type and location of European castle you could sell your apartment in order to buy, no joke.

The warning strike and after

Here is my post for interlocals on yesterday's warning strike.

The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) held a warning strike yesterday in protest of several pressing labour issues including: the negotiation of the Korea US Free Trade Agreement, the signing of a tripartite agreement without consent or participation of the KCTU, the expanse of irregular work and oppression against their organizations and the sorry state of workers accident insurance and workers compensation.

The Korea Herald reported that, in all, 57,000 workers joined the four hour strike, though the KCTU reported that substantially more participated. Several more thousand rallied in front of the National Assembly during the afternoon and then marched to the headquarters of the ruling Uri Party where a vigil was held into the evening.

Originally, Wednesday's event was supposed to be the beginning of an indefinite strike but that event has been delayed to November 22nd. This was partially as a response to media criticisms of the KCTU's choice of the 15th, as it is the day that national university entrance exams begin, but also the decision to delay the indefinite strike was also declared as a way to give the government time to respond to the four major criticisms the KCTU voiced yesterday before deciding on further action. If the indefinite strike begins on the 22nd, KCTU workers will be joined by lots of other protest groups, including farmers and student groups, who will making that day an omnibus event against the FTA. The nation's police are already up in arms about what could turn out to be one of the largest protest of the year, following large anti-FTA protest and heavy police response in July.

In addition to Wednesdays protest, there were also solidarity actions in Australia and in other cities world-wide. Finally, the KCTU recently put out a film about Korea's labour relations issues, 10 years after the OECD: trade union repression in Korea which you can watch over at the Christian's CINA blog.

walkout wednesday

As the KCTU walkout starts today, CINA has some stories on this protest and some others that are scheduled for the month.