[PEN-L:5451] Rolling strike campaign in South Korea

[Bill Rosenberg <w.rosenberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date:          Sat, 17 Apr 1999 16:53:31 +0900
From:          äTøl <inter@xxxxxxxx>
Subject:       KCTU Strike Set for April 19 With Subway Workers to Lead
To:            #KCTU Solidarity Power# <kctupower@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
               #KCTU/Press# <kctupress@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Reply-to:      kctupower@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

                          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: inter@xxxxxxxx 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, 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 sys 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 Electrici 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 aff 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 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 opposi 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 wage 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 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 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

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