I don’t think this is a good analogy to compare truckers trying to get higher wages with the mafia state in North Korea:
President Yoon Suk-yeol has likened the ongoing truckers strike to North Korea’s nuclear threats, saying the government should respond sternly with principles like it does to protect the people from Pyongyang’s repeated actions of menace.
“If we had pursued (consistent) North Korea policies based on the principle of nuclear intolerance, we wouldn’t be facing North Korea’s nuclear threat as we do now,” he was quoted as saying by multiple officials, according to Yonhap News Agency on Monday.
“The vicious cycle will repeat if we give in to (their) illegal activities and violence,” he said, stressing union leadership should be sternly punished for blocking members from returning to work.
Korea Herald
What I can agree with is that the KCTU based on their past activities is sympathetic to the North Korean regime:
His party, the People Power Party, went further, claiming the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, the umbrella group initiating the ongoing strike, “represents the interest of the North Korean regime.”
Park Jung-ha, a senior spokesperson of the People Power Party, accused the KCTU of taking orders from North Korea to initiate anti-US and anti-government struggles, denouncing that it should change its name to “Minrochong,” a North Korean way of referring to Minnochong, by which the KCTU is known in Korean.
Here is what the truckers are protesting about:
The truckers union has been on a general strike since Nov. 24, saying the government has failed to keep up its end of the bargain to continue the safe trucking freight rate system that both sides had agreed on in June to end an eight-day strike at the time. The safe trucking freight rate system is a measure that guarantees minimum cargo rates for truck drivers to prevent dangerous driving and overwork. It also imposes fines on shippers who pay less than the minimum rate. It was introduced as a three-year system in 2020 and expires at the end of this year.
I am supportive of higher pay for truck drivers, however what I don’t support is unions threatening and assaulting other truck drivers to prevent them from going to work.