BY HYOSU KANG
SEOUL — On August 27, police served a search and seizure warrant on the headquarters of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions to arrest 16 KCTU leaders. A large detachment of police surrounded the office, where 200 unionists had barricaded themselves inside, preparing for the police assault.
Two days earlier, President Roh Moo-Hyun had declared that any union action that is "illegal and driven by self-interest" would not be "tolerated" anymore. In particular, he singled out a strike by truck drivers for workers' compensation insurance.
The owner-drivers, who are members of the KCTU-affiliated Korean Conveyance Workers Federation, are treated as self-employed proprietors and are therefore not protected by the labour standards Act.
Along with police repression against union leaders, the government is using a combination of promises and threats against individual workers to break up the strike. The corporate media is key to this psychological warfare, running a daily scare campaign about the impact of the strike on foreign investors and claiming that more and more workers are resuming work each day.
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, September 3, 2003.
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