Three Civil Service Unions join the KCTU...

Korean news has been in rage the last couple days over the decision of three major Civil Service unions to merge and join the KCTU. The government has been quick to react by warning that they will punish the unions for any illegal activities. Under Korean law, public employees are prevented from taking in collective action but they are allowed to join outside organizations creating these type of controversies.

Media reaction, to the shock of few, has been divided. The Korea Times has posted an excellent article on the subject noting the blatant hypocrisy when one considers that many government officials had no problems when unions joined the FKTU. They also point out that Korea's labor standards are abysmal not only by developed world standards, but by the standards set in the ILO that Korea is a member of.

From the conservative side, the Joongang Daily has a nasty response to the news, with this being my favorite part.

That the three unions pushed ahead to become the latest to join the KCTU can only mean that they sold the sacred spirit of public service for collective selfishness. We can see, through their thinly veiled cover, that the civil servants’ unions wanted to rely on the militant KCTU to realize their goals in issues like wage hikes and their opposition to pension reforms and to restructuring. The image of the public workers going on political strikes under the pro-North Korea, anti-America KCTU is enough to make us shudder. And it is precious tax money that people have shelled out to support public service that would instead be used for such strikes. That would be pathetic.

I don't know what is more hilarious; the fantasy idea that civil service has a "sacred spirit" that is above all pettiness or the fact that being anti-American is important to note on this issue. Aren't civil workers loyal to the government they working for above all else? Why would being anti-American a thing to note in this case?

For comparisons sake, laws on public workers doing collective action in the United States varies tremendously from state to state and type of employment (Railroad and Airline workers are different), but in theory public workers generally have the same rights under federal law (State law is different) as private workers. In practice, this of course means that most Unions negotiate the right to strike in their contracts and can only strike in very specific cases just like other workers. This is only at the federal level though and some states do ban collective action among public workers.