I made a bit if time to look around, and does not address your query - but I did find some very interesting (to me anyway) background information. A rather long article consisting of an interview with a US based Korean activist in "These Times": "South Korea Declared War on Unions. Workers Are Fighting Back. In the face of widespread repression, South Korean workers are rising up for fair pay and labor protections." MAXIMILLIAN ALVAREZ SEPTEMBER 20, 2023; interview with Ju-Hyun Park, author, organizer, and Engagement Editor at The Real News Network; at: https://inthesetimes.com/article/working-people-south-korean-worker-militancy. Just 4-5 Excerpts from this long and informative piece:
"the death of Yang Hoe-dong, who was a chapter leader of the National Construction Workers Union. He set himself on fire on Mayday in protests of racketeering charges that he was placed under along with several other union leaders at the time. Now, this is part of President Yoon’s so-called war on unions which he is prosecuting, mainly targeting them under — the best analogy to US law would be thinking about the RICO Act and things like that. So basically, the charges are that the unions are corrupt, that they are infiltrated with gangsters with the most abhorrent rhetoric. They’ll use the language of North Korean spies and things of that nature. But they’ve been taking this corruption angle against the unions in particular and the self-emulation that Yang Hoe-dong did, setting himself on fire, was in protest of all of these charges and the general campaign that’s being waged against union leaders. . . " ". . . we’ve actually seen a general strike in South Korea led by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions which is the umbrella union that includes the Construction Workers Union, and the Metal Workers Union. Maximillian Alvarez: That’s the federation whose offices were raided in January by the same government. Ju-Hyun Park: Yes, exactly. So in this general strike, we saw about a quarter million people participate in the strike itself: over 100,000 people participating in over 30 street actions and demonstrations. . . " ". . .The purpose, or the strategy of the KCTU, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, was to bring together the most marginalized and oppressed strata of the working masses. That includes the irregular workers, it includes the remaining peasantry in South Korea, it includes organizations for the urban poor as well as the more traditional unions for workers who are considered so-called regular workers: workers who have contracts but still have some protections under the law. . . " ". . . all of that is happening amidst a huge downturn in the South Korean economy which has seen month after month of trade imbalances and the declining power of the Korean currency. A lot of that is tied to the Yoon Administration’s foreign policy. Specifically to his obsequence to Washington and his going along with the US victims that South Korea and other nations in the Asia Pacific such as Japan, and Taiwan, and others should be cutting off their economic ties with China. . . On the surface, South Korea has umbrella union organizations. That’s what the KCTU is: It’s the second-largest umbrella union organization. It’s the more radical out of the two or three large umbrella organizations that exist. The KCTU alone represents over a million workers. . . " ____________________________END_____________________________ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#33925): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/33925 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/109917761/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
