Tag: strike

It looks like the KCTU trucker protest has been a failure for them:

The trucker strike is over 16 days after it started, a majority of union members voting to go back to work, and some just dispersing.  
   
In votes held at 16 locations nationwide, 62 percent of the 3,574 that cast ballots agreed to end the strike.  
   
The decisive climb down came a day after the government said it would order more truckers back to work, extending the legally binding orders to steel and petrochemical truckers. Cement truckers received back-to-work orders last week, and all but one complied or indicated the intent to do so. (…….)   

“We decided not to ask the opinion of our union members as asking the members to vote on whether to continue to strike is an attempt by leadership to avoid accountability and pass that responsibility to the members,” a Busan union official said. “The general strike didn’t end up with the results that we expected was because of the Yoon Suk-yeol government breaking its promise, oppression and anti-labor policies.”    
   
Truckers went into strike on Nov. 24. Cargo Truckers Solidarity, the trucker union under the militant Korea Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), failed to rally public support amid concerns over the weakening economy and several reports of violence directed at  non-union truck drivers.    
   
The strikers were also swayed by the heavy penalties of the back-to-work order. They could face up to three years in jail and up to 30 million won in fines for not complying. Threats to end certain government subsidies were also made. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but I think the threats the KCTU was making against trucker drivers trying to go to work really soured the public on the protests.

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.

With the KCTU behind these protests I don’t know if these truckers are actually striking for improved pay or to crater the ROK economy because someone from the Korean right is President:

President Yoon Suk-yeol ordered his ministers, Sunday, to make preparations to expand executive orders to striking truckers in the refining and steel industries, with the government vowing to mobilize a maximum number of police to crack down on illegal protests by the unionized truckers.

“The government will not compromise with any forces that collectively resort to illegal acts and violence, and will hold them accountable for each of their infractions,” Yoon said during a ministerial meeting on the truckers’ strike. “Otherwise, damage stemming from chronic illegal strikes will be repeated in the future.”

Yoon added, “The government should crack down on these illegal acts and take stern measures by mobilizing the full administrative forces. … Also, ministers should prepare to expand the executive order to truckers who are involved in the refining and steel industries.”

The comments came after a strike by the Cargo Truckers Solidarity (CTS) stretched on for the 11th day as of Sunday. The CTS has been refusing to transport cargo since Nov. 24, demanding a permanent guarantee of a minimum freight rate by the government. 

The president signed an executive order last week to get unionized truckers to return to work. The strike, involving 2,500 truckers transporting mostly cement products, caused significant damage to the country’s construction industry. Losses have also been reported in the refining and steel industries. (……)

Referring to a nationwide strike by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) scheduled on Tuesday as “politically motivated,” Yoon ordered his ministers to crack down on illegal acts by “mobilizing the full administrative forces.”

Having more than 1 million members, the KCTU is one of Korea’s largest labor unions. It is also the umbrella organization of the CTS and plans to stage the nationwide strike on Tuesday to support the truckers.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but the Yoon administration has a good argument that this is politically motivated because why didn’t the KCTU conduct this strike when Moon Jae-in was president? Yoon has only been president for a few months and now they launch their strike?

President Moon has fighting words for the doctors that have gone on strike this week:

South Korean President Moon Jae-in sent a warning message on Aug. 24 to physician groups that launched a collective strike to protest plans to create new public health colleges and raise the admissions cap for medical schools.

“We will have no choice but to respond sternly to the collective use of force in violation of the law, such as strikes and walkouts,” Moon said, describing the current situation as a “desperate moment where the number of people infected [with COVID-19] could skyrocket anywhere at any time if we let down our guard even a little.”Presiding over a meeting of senior secretaries and aides at the Blue House that day, Moon said, “We would like the medical community to refrain from collective action.

Collective action that holds the public’s life hostage will not gain support at a time when we need to be harnessing our national capacities to stop the virus from spreading.”“One can oppose or criticize government policy, but it cannot cross the line of what is lawful,” he stressed in his first public message directed at the Korea Intern Resident Association (KIRA). (………………..)

“A Level 3 upgrade is by no means an easy decision to make. Daily life would come to a stop, jobs would collapse, and we would have to suffer through a truly enormous economic setback. We could even see a collapse of the healthcare system.

Hankyoreh

If President Moon is so concerned about his doomsday scenario then why doesn’t he scrap his medical reform plan? Additionally Moon in the article also hinted at putting more journalists and protesters in jail that don’t agree with his administration:

”Moon further hinted at plans for a stern response toward obstruction of disease prevention efforts and the spreading of fake news, which he referred to as “antisocial criminal acts.”“No religious freedom, no freedom of assembly, no freedom of expression can be proclaimed if it means causing such enormous harm to the South Korean public,” he declared, adding that he would “clearly establish the strict fairness of public authorities.”

You can read more at the link.

I learned something new today; I did not know that Korea had a quota on the number of students who can be trained to become a doctor:

The Moon Jae-in administration has been at odds with doctors over its healthcare reform bills that will increase the number of medical students admitted to universities and establish a state-funded medical school.

The government said July 23 that it wants to produce more doctors to broaden the reach of public health care services as the necessity for this was confirmed with the onset of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. As soon as the plan was made public, however, doctors’ groups were up in arms immediately, vowing to go on strike.

The Korea Medical Association (KMA), the nation’s largest union for doctors, and the Korean Intern Resident Association (KIRA) announced plans to stage an all-out strike Aug. 14 to protest the reform. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but what is going on is that the Moon administration is trying to increase the number of doctors so there are more of them in rural areas. However, the KMA is saying the issue is not the number of doctors, but the fact that doctors flock to the Greater Seoul Metropolitan Area because of higher pay and quality of life factors.

Workplace protest, Japanese style:
Bus drivers are striking by continuing to drive but refusing to take fares from passengers. https://t.co/ig11yuqSyj pic.twitter.com/3EYXiENqWY

— Anna Fifield (@annafifield) May 3, 2018

Unionized workers at Hyundai Motor Co.’s factory in Ulsan, 414 km southeast of Seoul, stage a partial strike calling for higher wages and bonuses on Dec. 5, 2017. Earlier in the day, the carmaker’s 51,000-member union declared a strike for four to six hours from Dec. 5-8 at five plants in the city. (Yonhap)

It looks like there could be some serious gridlock if the subway workers strike as planned to stop the implementing of performance based pay:

The Korean Public Service and Transport Workers’ Union will enter an all-out strike from today, while metros in Seoul and Busan also announced a strike from today, which comes as worrying news for many commuters who fear they may have to contend with nationwide paralyzed underground and railroad traffic.

The announcement on Monday heralds the first time in 22 years that the transport workers’ union and public metro companies in Seoul decided to hold a simultaneous strike.

The transport workers’ strikes follow a general strike by the Korean Financial Industry Union since Friday, and will be followed by another from Korean Health and Medical Workers’ Union on Wednesday and by the Federation of Korean Trade Unions and Korean Confederation of Trade Unions on Thursday.

The unions are protesting the central government’s plan to extend the performance-based salary system to more employees of public companies and organizations.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.