News updates..

First, I must apologize for the lack of posts. I have been dealing with personal issues lately that kept me out of the loop for the short bit. Fortunately, there has been some notable events in the last week or so that are worth looking into:

-First the labor ministry has imposed a ban on certain ceremonies that civil servants can do during their official events. Usage of folk labor songs and chants are common at these events which apparently antagonizes the government and people.

-The Korea Railway Workers' Union has voted for a strike.

-Minu, a migrant worker activist from Nepal, has officially been deported from Korea. Minu was deported for his involvement in political activities which non-citizens are restricted from doing under Korean law (though they are fairly vague on what a political activity is). I haven't paid to much attention to migrant worker issues on this blog so far but I am going to try to keep a better eye on it from now on.

-The NHRCK is requesting an investigation on the possibility of police brutality during the Ssangyong occupation.

Now, moving away from labor related news...

-We are all aware of DPRK defectors.. but have you heard of defectors from ROK to the DPRK?

-In more positive news not only has the ROK government came out of the recession, but had the highest quarterly GDP growth since 2002.

-The ROK government will restart the sending aid to DPRK after a series of backdoor talks between President Lee and DPRK officials. Does this mean President Lee is a in-closet Communist?

-There was a few elections this week for some seats in the parliament and to the surprise of a few, the GNP did not do well.

-Probably the biggest news however is that the Constitutional Court has made a ruling on the media bill reforms. While they state that the GNP acted inappropriately and violated the voting rules, they will not overturn the passing of the bills. This ruling is fairly similar to what happened during the Roh impeachment issue where the court ruled that Roh was out of line, but did not throw him out office. As I mentioned in a previous post, this should have been expected.

Labor ministry refuses to recgonize KGEU

In an ongoing series of escalation, the Labor Ministry has announced it is refusing to acknowledge the newly formed KGEU. Furthermore, they are pushing threw a new amendment for the civil servant laws;

If the amendment is enacted, government employees and the government employee union would be prohibited from engaging in issuing public statements, endorsing petitions, participating in protests or assemblies, and advocating for the ideas of specific political parties. MOPAS explained, “Ever since government employees’ union issued public statements opposing government policy in daily newspapers and employees have been wearing vests with political slogans on them during working hours, employees have been in violation of the measure that requires the political neutrality of government employees.” MOPAS added that is adopt the new amendment in response to the union’s decision to join the umbrella of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU).

"Advocating for the ideas of specific political parties"? What the hell is wrong with the Labor Ministry? This is no longer a simple case of fighting over political neutrality, its becoming one of the most over the top legalistic attempts to crush unionization I have ever seen.

Even the relatively moderate Korea Times is stating that this is destructive so its not just the crazy left wing Hankyoreh. All I can say is... wow.

Strike! Strike! Strike! Strike!

As many people probably know by now Unions in Korea are not very happy about the Labor Ministry's plans to force through the new labor laws involving paid union members and multiple unions in one shop. What has been surprising though is that the biggest bullhorn in recent days has been from the FKTU, a more conservative pro-government federation, and not the KCTU. It looks like now that the dog poop has hit the fan, and the FKTU is now threatening a general strike.

"We regard the issue of multiple unions and salary ban as a matter of life and death for 16 million workers and will devote all our energy to fighting against it (revisions)," the FKTU said in a statement issued in the name of 652 representatives.

The FKTU agrees to having more than one union at a single work place but opposes government demands that only one of them be recognized as the negotiating partner with the management. It also argues that the government's "no work, no pay" principle undermines the union's important role as the mediator between workers and the management.

The labor association, which claims over 700,000 members nationwide, said they were abandoning a tripartite panel's agreement reached in February on "sharing the burden" to help overcome the global economic crisis. The KFTU had pledged at the time to refrain from strikes and to freeze or cut back wages.

According to the JoongAng Daily, the FKTU is planning to team up with the KCTU to coordinate a general strike.

“If our demands regarding multiple unions in a single workplace and pay for full-time unionists are not fully satisfied, we have no option but to start a general strike,” Jang Seok-chun, head of the FKTU, told reporters in a press conference held at the Korea Electric Power Corporation in Samseong-dong, southern Seoul. “If we team up with the KCTU, we will stage a joint strike .?.?. Executive members of two labor unions will meet to discuss forming an alliance on Oct. 21.”

...

Lee Su-bong, KCTU spokesman, said there’s no major obstacle to forming an alliance and staging a strike with the FKTU because the “two sides share the same views on the disputed matters.”

Has President Lee's labor policies finally pushed the unions over the edge? Has the FKTU turned over a new leaf? Will this actually be a real strike and not just a weak 3 day event like the KCTU's last general strike? Will I ever get my workers visa allowing me to watch these events and take pretty photos for you all?

My answers: Yes. No. Possibly. And hopefully.

Hooray for legalist assaults on workers!!

After taking a break a couple weeks ago, the Korean government has decided to reopen its attack on workers and unions in Korea. The current target seems to be the civil servant unions. Monday Ministry of Public Administration and Security announced that they will fire atleast 14 workers and send another 105 to disciplinary committee for their actions in July. I think its not a stretch to say that this action was in pure retaliation for the unions decision to join the KCTU.

In further news, several administrators have announced they plan to toughen restrictions on civil servants ability to challenge government policies.

The ministries agreed to make a list of political activities considered anathema for civil servants. The current law says, “Public servants are banned from forming or becoming members of a specific political party, and from advocating or opposing a specific political party or political candidate.” Violators are subject to a one-year prison term or a fine of up to 3 million won ($2,577).

But the ministries want to add the following phrase: “Civil servants are prohibited from forming groups and planning, leading and hosting events that oppose or interrupt government policies.”

I can understand the need for preventing civil servants to be involved in party politics or endorsing candidates, but is this really necessary? If civil servants believe strongly that a government policy is wrong shouldn't they have the right to oppose it publicly? I can understand that some groups of civil servants (such as those in diplomacy) need to be in unison with government policies due to the nature of their job, do just random bureaucrats in non-security areas need to be that strict? Furthermore, this just damages the bureaucracy even more if many employees are not happy with what is going on and just quit. The US has suffered badly because many of its Middle East experts quit in protest of the Iraq war.

The government said it will then try to ban civil servants’ labor unions from joining either of the nation’s two umbrella unions - the aforementioned KCTU or the Federation of Korean Trade Unions.

So not only are they being authoritarian douchebags, they are being stupid as well. Apparently they haven't learned from Park Chung-hee who never went this far with their labor policies. Wanna know why? Because its much easier to just co-opt major union federations and make them part of the government. This is how the FKTU formed.

Oh, and an organizer for the Ssangyong occupation will face a jailterm for causing a violent strike. Not really shocking news there.

The labor ministry begins fight with... the FKTU!?

With much labor news being dominated by the KCTU and affiliated groups, one might be shocked that the conservative FKTU is butting heads with the government in recent days. The issue is over a fairly old bill that I covered a few posts ago.

While the FKTU wants all multiple unions to have negotiation power, the government has said only a single representative body should be in charge of negotiations. The FKTU also wants the wages of full-time union officials to be decided independently between a labor union and a company, while the government said a labor union must be responsible for the wages of its own officials.

If the government and the labor community fail to compromise, the current laws governing the two issues will automatically take effect. In that case, all labor unions will have negotiation power, while companies will be banned from paying union officials.

Jang made clear that he will pull out all FKTU officials from the Economic and Social Development Commission, formerly known as the Korea Tripartite Commission.

This is not the first time the FKTU has pulled out of government committees; they did it in 2005 in opposition to President Roh's neoliberal policies. So far, the conservative opinion writers have been silent on this issue. I'll post more if I see anything else come up.

Reading and thinking..

Sorry for the slow updates. Things have been fairly slow recently due to the recent holiday weekend in Korea nor has there really been anything peaking my interest so far over here news wise; so instead I have spent my time recently reading some new books I've picked up recently. One of books I've picked up is something some people would probably be surprised I never read; the Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley.

My initial reaction so far has been filled with love for the book. I started reading it last night and kept reading until my body was physically incapable of reading anymore. More importantly, in the first half of the book it made me realize how pointless the "Malcolm X vs MLK Jr" debates I occasionally see among the internet. Most people don't realize was that both figures were making critiques and responses to racism in their own areas. Dr. King was in an area where segregation was a legal reality, and getting legal recognition was necessary. Arguments of "integration" were important to him because they did not exist in any form. In contrast, Malcolm X was in an area where integration was already accepted to some degree and most whites were claiming to be against segregation. Malcolm X himself went to mostly white schools. The problem for the northern parts of the USA was that racism was more systemic and not in the open. Because of this, Malcolm focused more on the system itself and calls for integration wouldn't have been as effective there as it was in the south.

I'm not even halfway through the book (I stopped when Reginald begin introducing NOI to Malcolm) and I've already found myself reviewing my values and how I thought the world worked. Might be the best $7 I spent in a long time.