Korean Confederation of Trade Unions
5th Fl. Daeyoung Bld., 139 Youngdeungpo-2-ga,
Youngdeungpo-ku, Seoul 150-032 Korea
Tel.: +82-2-636-0165 Fax: +82-2-635-1134
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://kctu.org
KCTU News
April 17, 1999
KCTU Concerted Campaign
All Set to Go
Subway Workers to Lead the Struggle
The KCTU-wide general campaign, including rolling strikes by selected
unions, is set to roll into action on Monday April 19, 1999 with the
strike
by the Seoul Subway Workers Union leading the way. The government,
spearheaded by the Public Prosecutors, has threatened to arrest all
leaders
responsible for the strike action, with some 40 elected leaders of the
Seoul Subway Workers Union on the top of the long-list.
The first stage of the general campaign is scheduled to reach a peak
with a massive public rally on May Day. The May Day rally will, then,
lead to a new build up, gaining new momentum with the major unions of
the Korean Metal Workers Federation leading the second wave.
The KCTU Demand
The KCTU General Campaign is aimed at forcing a change in the overall
orientation of the government's restructuring policy. The Kim Dae
Jung government, in actively espousing the discredited IMF policy of
neo-liberalism and Washington Consensus, has enshrined mass lay-off
(retrenchment, redundancy, dismissal for economic reasons, workforce
reduction) as the central and only component of 'restructuring'
programme. The ill-advised policy - perhaps aimed at appeasing the
Wall Street neo-liberal zealots - was, last year, responsible for the
dismissal of some 400,000 workers and the collapse of the domestic
economy as a whole. The dire consequences of dancing to the tune of
logic of 'international confidence' in the eyes of foreign concerns
was the decimation of the domestic resilience and a horrendous
increase in unemployment to two million in official figurms (four
million in the KCTU analysis).
KCTU calls for an end to this mad policy. A joint government-labour
statement (a sample of a presidential statement was recently produced
by the KCTU to be posted in public locations only to be torn down by
riot-police) declaring the halt in the layoff drive will pave the way
for a negotiated alternative reform programme based on working hour
reduction. A commitment to reduce working hours will be the central
anchor of all reform measures in the sphere of economic policy,
corporate structures, taxation system, social security system, and
participatory social consensus process.
The Seoul Subway Workers to Lead the Way
The KCTU general campaign will be led on April 19, 1999 by the
workers at the Seoul Subway. They have already begun their activities
since last week with a rolling 'work-to-rule' campaign. The drivers,
station staff, maintenance divisions have, for the last one week,
stuck to operational rules in all their work. This has led to unsafe
trains being kept away from operation until serviced to top safety
level and drivers sticking to stipulated stop time requirements at
each station.
The Public Sector Workers to Carry the First Wave
The Seoul Subway workers will be joined by other members in the
Korean Federation of Transport, Public and Social Service Labour
Unions (KPSU). On April 16, the KPSU held a press conference to
announce that a total of 35 unions with 80,000 members will strike
starting from April 19. The action will begin on 4 a.m. Monday with
the Seoul Subway workers, to be joined later by workers from 25 other
unions including the Dacom, National Sports Promotion Corporation,
National Evaluation Authority, Korea Electricity Technology
Authority, National Oil Pipeline Authority. On April 21, they will be
joined again by unions at technology research institutes, while the
Pusan Urban Transit and Korean Refrigeration workers will join on
April 22.
The 50,000 strong Korea Telecom Trade Union is expected to keep the
strike momentum escalating by joining in on April 26. On Sunday April
18, the Telecom workers will hold a general meeting of all members
where more than 20,000 workers are expected to begin a nation-wide
Korean Telecom Trade Union vote to go on strike.
The Streets to Heat Up with Workers Struggle
To bolster the strike action, the KCTU will organise daily mass
rallies in Seoul and other major urban centres. The street
demonstration campaign starts on April 17 with a public rally at the
Seoul Central Station to be attended by some 10,000 workers before
marching to the Myongdong Cathedral.
The Myongdong Cathedral is expected to become once again the centre
of action and the seat of the KCTU General Campaign Headquarters, as
the major KCTU leadership is expected to set camp there. All mass
public rallies planned to be held in Seoul will end with street march
to the Cathedral hill.
The striking workers will converge for a demonstration of force on
April 19 in a mid-afternoon mass rally. Similar rallies are scheduled
for every day until the May Day. Each day more than 10,000 workers
are expected to demonstrate in Seoul streets. Later in the day, more
workers will be mobilised for evening rallies with marches to the
Myongdong Cathedral.
Workers, Farmers, Urban Poor, and Unemployed
to Join Hands in Common Struggle
On April 22, the KCTU will hold a special solidarity rally together
with the Korean Urban Poor Federation while worker-farmer solidarity
will be shown off in another special rally on April 24 jointly
organised by the KCTU and the Korean Farmers Federation. In another
rally on April 24, the KCTU and an alliance of unemployed workers
associations put a set of demands to the government calling for a
substantial policy change to create jobs, minimise unemployment, and
provide livelihood support for people affected by the crisis and the
IMF SAP programme.
The sectoral solidarity rallies will culminate on April 27 with a
National People's Rally which will bring together workers, farmers,
urban poor, women, student and youth, and all other sectors of the
society affected by the crisis and the neo-liberal madness. The multi-
sectoral solidarity actions and broad alliance have surfaced on the
basis of a common understanding to join forces in pushing for a
genuine reform.
On April 15, the leaders of the KCTU, the farmers movement, and the
urban poor people's movement held a joint conference to announce the
adoption of common platform for solidarity and joint struggle. The
three sectoral representative organisations denounced that the
government was bent on sacrificing the livelihood and rights of
people in order to appease and satisfy foreign and domestic monopoly
capital. The joint declaration called for the dismantling of the
chaebol system by evicting the dynastic family clans from the
management and separation of ownership and management. Furthermore,
the three organisations demanded a thorough going clean up of the
corrupt politicians and government practices. And they committed
themselves to support the struggle for working hour reduction,
cancellation of farmers' debts, and end to criminalisation and
eviction of street vendors.
Korean Workers Struggle Moves to Washington
Organisations of Koreans living in the U.S. and some American
activist groups critical of the IMF neo-liberal campaign joined
forces for a joint rally in Washington D.C., U.S. to reject the IMF
agenda and to express their support for the struggle of the KCTU. The
U.S. groups declared their commitment to develop stronger links with
struggles of workers and people in other countries which have come
undert the IMF dictates and the Washington Consensus to encourage and
foster a broader world-wide common opposition to the neo-liberal
agenda.
Workers Struggle Boosted by Accelerated Party Building
In the morning of April 18, 1999, a year-long effort to broaden and
step-up the movement-wide debate and momentum to build a working
class-based progressive political party will come into a historic
fruition.
The commitment of more than 1,000 leaders of various social
movements, including the decision of the KCTU Central Committee on
April 7 have paved the way for the launching of a Progressive Party
Promotion Committee. The new body will be entrusted with the
preliminary work for an as-yet unnamed progressive political party of
the people. The initial work will lead to the establishment of a
formal party preparation committee in June or July.
The organisation of a mass based progressive political party will
provide the missing link between the militant people's struggles and
the thrust towards people's power in all spheres of life, including
the government and politics.
Repression Cannot Stop the Struggle
The government, led by the security-ideologues at the Public
Prosecutors Office, has already announced its intention to crack down
on any strike action by the KCTU. In keeping with the tradition of
police orchestration of industrial relations, the Public Prosecutors
Office declared that it will initially target some 40 leaders of the
Seoul Subway Workers Union if the strike goes ahead.
The Public Prosecutors Office declared that the KCTU's demand for an
end to restructuring and working hour reduction are not matters for
negotiation. And any KCTU-led opposition to the government policy is
illegal, liable for prosecution. Furthermore, the Prosecutors also
declared the Seoul Subway Workers Union's opposition to the
management's plan to cut back wages and benefits is illegal because
it is a part of the government policy of burden sharing. It
rationalised that the decision to cut back on wages and benefits of
government-employed workers was a symbolic gesture of the government
to share the pain of the current crisis.
The shrill charges made by the government at this early stage
prepares the scene for a repeat or bettering of the record
imprisonment of workers set last year when nearly 300 KCTU leaders
and members were put away in jail. The KCTU, however, plans to push
ahead with its plan for a month-long general campaign, if the
government continues to insist that it cannot permit a direct
negotiation with the KCTU. At the April 17 public rally in Seoul,
some 3,000 KCTU leaders and activists submitted signed statements
declaring their determination to continue the struggle regardless of
the government threat of imprisonment.
The KCTU's general campaign programme, which started late last year
with broad public education and awareness raising activities began to
return results just as the campaign is set to step up its gear.
Various public opinion surveys conducted by media and even government
itself are beginning to show that Koreans in general opposed the
current layoff drive and supported working hour reduction as the
centre piece of thorough-going reform programme. For example, an
opinion poll conducted this week by the KBS found that 64% of the
respondents opposed the layoff policy and 75% supported working hour
reduction.
These results fly in the face of the government, which mobilised all
its means, including the repeated public statements by the President
Kim Dae Jung, to insist and inculcate that mass layoff was necessary
and unavoidable if Korea were to get itself out of the crisis and
appease the ire of the IMF and foreign investors.
The government, despite its efforts to appear unmoved by the KCTU's
build up, is beginning to show signs of concern at the gravity of the
situation. It may not, therefore, be a surprise to see a flurry of
last-minute - and perhaps uncoordinated -- feelers from the
government for negotiation. The KCTU leadership is planning to
respond carefully to these turn of events, even if it is suspected
that these proposals would be less than genuine attempts to begin a
sincere process for a negotiated settlement but last minute
manoeuvrings to scuttle the KCTU's plan for general campaign.
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[Korean Confederation of Trade Unions]
http://kctu.org
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