110,000 KMWU members strike against FTA

SOUTH KOREA: Members of the Korean Metalworkers' Union (KMWU) kicked off a series of rallies against the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement (Kor-US FTA) in central Seoul and regionally on June 29. In Seoul 20,000 workers, farmers and students, under the umbrella of the Korean Trade Union Confederation (KCTU) and the Korean Alliance against the Kor-US FTA (KoA), voiced their opposition to the agreement, which was signed by Korea and the U.S. on Saturday June 30. The Kor-US FTA, which is yet to be ratified by the US Congress and Korean unicameral National Assembly, will pit both Korean and U.S. workers against one another in a race to the bottom, while enabling capital mobility and financial speculation. The agreement fails to include meaningful protection of fundamental workers' rights and is based on a system where economic growth is achieved through the destruction of good jobs, increased casualisation of employment, and by undermining universal health care and other public services. Prior to the rallies on Friday, the KMWU held a series of regional and national strikes against the Kor-US FTA, expressing its serious concerns about the impact the FTA will have on its members. Employers have since filed damages claims for economic losses, resulting in the government investigating 67 KMWU officers and issuing 27 arrest warrants against KMWU leaders, including its president, first vice president, general secretary, and 14 regional branch chairs. On June 28, 110,000 KMWU members across the country downed tools, including KMWU Hyundai Motors Branch union members in Ulsan who halted production at 12.30. Workers at Hyundai Motors had been the focus of attacks by government, employers and press for striking against the FTA. To avoid a violent crackdown at a mass rally, the workers gathered in nine areas throughout the plant complex for smaller rallies near their lines. About 9,000 KMWU members struck on June 25 in Chungcheong and North Jolla regions, and over 20,300 workers in Seoul Metropolitan region and Kwangju/South Jolla province took strike action on June 26, and 38,000 workers went on strike in Yeongnam region on Wednesday. The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD (TUAC), joined with the IMF and several of its affiliates and others in sending letters of solidarity to the KMWU on the occasion of its first national strike since becoming an industrial union.